


Seize the Deity (plus map)

by Charles_Rockafellor



Series: Love against the darkness [3]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), Super Mario & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Adventure, C-PTSD, Cinnamon Roll, F/F, Femslash, Food Porn, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Found Family, Functional Alcoholism, Mash-up, Medicinal Drug Use, Mixed Martial Arts, Multilingual Character, Neglected Childhood, Pirates, Polyglot, Rape-prevented scene, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Survival Training, Temporary Character Death, Tsundere, 恋の予感 | koi no yokan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:02:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 90,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24232528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charles_Rockafellor/pseuds/Charles_Rockafellor
Summary: With Sonic, Tails, and Ruru by her side, Zelda seeks to wrest control of the world back from the clutches of Warbotdorf in aBelgariad-like adventure (all the while trading quips after the fashion ofThe Princess BrideorAnother Fine Myth), but the task is made all the more difficult when a seeming innocent stumbles into her life.Her heart grown cold from nearly a decade of battle and betrayal, Zelda finds Peach, a caring soul – but she also knows that evil lives to present the face of innocence while seeking the ruination of all.  In a world where a narcissist has taken control of the empire, can love find its way into the heart of the imperial princess?Fighting the bad guy was one thing, but to fight her own heart as well would sap the last of her strength.“Hey, don't write yourself off yet.It's only in your head you feel left outor looked down on.”- “In the middle”, Jimmy Eat World (2001)WIP:A Zelda x Peach rom-dramedy in a fantasy-setting (see also: sidequel “Link: What evil lurks”).𝑫𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝑳𝒊𝒌𝒆, 𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑺𝒖𝒃𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒃𝒆! ❤️
Relationships: Peach Toadstool/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Series: Love against the darkness [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1751167
Comments: 8
Kudos: 4
Collections: Food Porn of Icewall, Light World, Love and romance





	1. The Maiden of Chapel Perilous

**Author's Note:**

> For the accompanying playlist / soundtrack, please see:  
> ▐► <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPYG6DgnCJHFlFe-u_MuZiew>
> 
> See also: approximately concurrent sidequel (with map of Hyrule): “[Link: What evil lurks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24360739/chapters/58747942)”, and the Necroscope-inspired story “[To be](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24353356)” set far to the east.
> 
>  **NB, 05 Feb 2021:** Not abandoned; I just got badly distracted writing [a bunch of other stories](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charles_Rockafellor/collections) and burned out in Dec 2020. I still have all of my notes and intend to get back to this, once I'm recuperated. The story here is mostly told; all chapters are present, but there are chunks that are only outlined rather than narrated (they're clearly marked, and done in red ink).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Princess Peach is discovered held in a tower high, and our party finds need to make all haste elsewhere.
> 
> NOTE: "Warbotdorf" is a composite BBEG whose TL;DR background broadly combines the canonic characters of Wario, Dr. Robotnik, and Ganondorf. His nature is primarily that of Robotnik, with only some in-story dabbling in Ganondorf's magics and intrigues (Wario playing only the most tangential of elements).

_**Light world ([open image](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fb/5d/ab/fb5daba45c97c39b3ef38973d41b7541.jpg) in new tab to zoom)** _

A figure clad in shades of darkness glided through the shadows of the great hall. It made its way silently across the floor and up the stair. When it entered the room, it stilled, absorbing the profound change in décor. Where there had been steel and stonework and harsh-scented torches, this room was soft with satin-weave silk, a scent of honeysuckle permeating the whole. The woman who rose from the bed – barely more than a girl really, clearly not yet having reached her twentieth year – was instantly recognizable, though far more curvaceous than her P.R. posters gave her credit for.

Peach.

Princess Peach Toadstool of House Toadstool, from the Mushroom Kingdom.

_Ahh, for a night in her bed, her golden curls cascading all about..._

Looking deep into violet eyes barely seen between shadows and olive-complected café au lait skin, Peach proclaimed herself the taken prize. A pleasant surprise. In an obvious affectation, the figure told her “Come with me, if you want to live.”

Peach begged a single boon, a kiss as a token from her savior. A smoldering look to match the smoky skin as part of the shemagh was lifted, then grasping Peach around the waist, a hand cleaving down her rear, drawing a gasp from her. She leaned in deep. As they kissed, the figure's lips parted hers, a tongue exploring gently but insistently. Her breath left her at this unexpected intrusion. She couldn't breathe, but found no need of it in the moment. As the figure pulled away, she chased those lips with her own, pressing herself to the figure's thigh, her head spinning madly and each of them yearning for far more.

Peach's body was indeed as lush and yielding as imagined; more so in fact. The figure stared into her eyes and down her ample bosom; a mouth-watering sight for a wandering gaze. Her heart's racing pulse could be felt even through the layers of cloth.

_This certainly holds promise... though such musings and pleasures must await more opportune surrounds, mayhap – or another lifetime, more like._

Out in the hall, Peach babbled on inanely, and introduced herself, asking the figure's name and looking on expectantly. The figure glanced back briefly from the corner, covered Peach's mouth, and whispered a rough “Stow it.”

_Stowit..._

They moved on, after a patrol passed their alcove.

Peach dithered outside. The figure mounted an awaiting horse, looking downward to Peach and extending a hand as she climbed up behind. They rode off scant moments before a hail of arrows pierced the area somewhat shy of where they had stood.

Arriving at a nondescript point in the woods, the figure stayed the horse. As it doffed the shemagh and turned to her, Peach found herself speechless. Her benefactor was a woman. Peach's eyes widened, though she recovered quickly, pulling her back into her embrace. Caressing her cheek and jawline, Peach closed her eyes, kissing her gently. With her hand behind the rider's neck, a hint of hesitation in her voice, she murmured that it would just take her some adjusting.

Feeling the sting of Peach's words, the rider was hardly surprised. Life was ever full of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. She had several bottles of a heady mulled honey mead at hand once they'd settled in, seeming intent on emptying them all, while Peach was beside herself trying to make amends.

“I need rupees to support the resistance, and no amount of good intentions will see an army forward an inch, girl.”

“You rescued me,” Peach sought to console her, “You are a true warrior, with a noble spirit.”

“At the end of the day, I'm a lecherous rebel with an empty purse, _Princess_ ,” she replied morosely, “and it's hearts that need rescuing, not people. We all die.”

The way that she'd said ' _Princess_.' It sounded to Peach as if it were halfway between an impersonal reference to social class and a tired sneer; biting, though without teeth to it.

As the rider explained that, her gaze had wandered down Peach's outfit, lingering longingly on some of her curves. Peach watched her gaze grow distant, looking far away at some thought or memory. Tiring of this, she told Peach to “...go to bed or something.”

“Nichevo strashnovo. Macht nichts,” she muttered to herself, lighting a cigar as Peach turned away. Burning tea leaves, with something chocolate-like. Her voice floated quietly across the air, singing in a melancholy near-dirge as her mind turned inward and unreeled memories scarred deep long ago.

“ _Bang-bang,_  
_I hit the ground, bang_  
_bang,_  
_that awful sound, bang-bang,_  
_my baby_  
_shot..._  
_me down..._ ”

It was a sweet but lonely scent that accompanied Peach to sleep. Slow tears formed – not for herself, but for the woman alone by the fire.

In the wee hours, a thoroughly drunken figure crawled to bed herself, awaking in the morning to Peach with a tray of food. Butter-drenched cornbread, jam-smothered oat cakes with clotted cream, rashers of bacon, sliced tomatoes, steamed mushrooms, crisp sausage links, pulled pork, and a richly marbled smoked salmon awaited her with a goblet of wine and a pot of honeyed tea.

The tent held a light scent of honeysuckle.

“Good morning, Stowit.”

Still groggy, she asked the time, and Peach said simply “Lunch? I didn't want to wake you, after last night.”

“What are you prattling on about, girl?”

“Well, after lying together last night–”

She spluttered over her wine.

“We... _what_?” her attention now focused completely on Peach.

Peach nodded and went on to explain, “Uh-huh! You told me to go to bed, so I did. You also mumbled something about warming your bed, which didn't make much sense to me since the night was really warm, but my parents used to say that a lot too. Whenever they did, they'd be gone all night and the next day in their bedchambers, and sometimes all weekend. I missed them, and felt bad for them. It always happened at the same time as some servant girl fell sick with a stomach bug or twisted her ankle or something and couldn't work the next day. They were always very pretty and sweet. But it was always O.K., because then they would all get better at the same time as my parents did, and everyone would show up in the morning, relaxed and happy and full of smiles and practically glowing, and it would be like a holiday for a few days with presents and parties and everything, and the servant girls who fell sick always stayed at the castle with my parents for a few nights afterward, to take care of one another and stuff! So I thought that maybe you were sick, and so I got your bedroll all nice and warm for you. You came to bed a long while later, and were snoring before you even hit the sack, and curled up around me as if I were a Teddy bear! I lay with you all night. But don't worry; you didn't make any of those moaning or screaming noises that my parents did whenever they felt that the night was cold, not even once all night, so I don't think that you're sick. But you really shouldn't sleep while still wearing your day clothes, since it's unhygienic. Which reminds me: I took them off for you, so that they wouldn't dirty the bedroll unnecessarily. They're in that folded pile, in the corner by your pillow, except for your socks and boots by the tent flap. And did you know that you snore very lightly? It's kind of cute, like a really low purr.”

Stowit's eyes widened and glazed perceptibly at this small torrent of bouncing thoughts pouring over her in a hypnotically sing-song voice. In her current state, it escaped her that all of this implied a similar state of undress for the princess throughout the remainder of the preceding night and morning.

When the words finally stopped coming, she just stared for a moment, not really knowing what to make of her.

“I don't snore,” was all that she managed. Too hungry to give it further thought, she returned to the food, intent on the spread.

Uncertain of what to do after handing her the tray, Peach continued kneeling there, her hands folded politely across her lap.

“I didn't know what you might like, so I simply brought a little of everything.”

“This is good, since I _eat_ everything. I have a _substantial_ appetite – born to gorge,” Stowit replied through a mouthful of food while gesturing with her fork, “You made all of this yourself?”

Peach shook her head, her curls flouncing adorably.

“Oh, no. I'm useless with food. I mean, I can bake cakes really well, and flip bacon, or eggs, or sausages, but that's it. There's this really nice Hedgehog outside, and he made it all.”

That stopped Stowit in her tracks.

“Short blue guy? Fancies himself funny?”

Peach nodded energetically, “Oh, you know him!”

“Sometimes I think I don't know anybody else _but_ him,” she replied as she tore out of the tent.

“Where the _fuck_ were you? 'cause it sure as hell wasn't my six!”

Stowit's outburst didn't cause Sonic to so much as bat an eye. Peach, however, was petrified, her eyes wide with incomprehension and nervousness. She stood near Tails for reassurance, a two-tailed Fox with a small Kaijin sitting on his shoulder.

It turned out that although Sonic hadn't found any chests of rupees and emeralds, he had managed to raid the larder and steal a wagon-load of goods.

“The fuck was I supposed ta do – pull a Barry Allen?”

“What's done is done,” she replied, “Goddesses, I could kill for some coffee.”

He rummaged through one of the sacks as she continued.

“And this wagon? I see it not.”

He stared at her as if she'd grown a second head.

“C'mon, ya think we're stunatu, Z? I took a few doglegs and stream fords, not ta mention I left an easy ta follow false trail, plus a hidden false trail, an' _then_ we left the sumbitch hidden in a vale a few miles away. The horses're there too, lightly tethered, wit' plenty o' lead.”

After going over all of this, he suggested laconically “Ya might wanna put some'n on, by the way. 'sa bit breezy out t'day.”

She returned to the tent to find her clothing, coming back out a minute later.

Sonic glanced over at Peach, who had by then busied herself with the coffee under Tails's instruction.

“So. Camp follower?” he commented, “Not'cher style, man.”

“Laugh it up, fuzzball,” she replied, “she's no camp follower. She'll be on her way ere long, one way or the other,” she ended cryptically.

“ 'at's only _halfa_ what I said,” Sonic observed.

“She's not even _awake_ yet!” she retorted.

Peach cocked her head at this last part.

“I've been up for hours!” she said offhand, giving their exchange little thought.

Stowit looked to Sonic as if having made her point.

“Touché,” he admitted, “but that still don't cover the heart o' the matter.”

A glint in her eye promised death were he to push things further.

“Thank you, Sonic, but our treasure is in another castle.”

Peach and the Kaijin, Ruru, chatted while the coffee brewed.

“The Ruru forms her physical body with magic. This process involves using magic to change the concept of Ruru from potential form to reified form, based on her Platonic ideal,” the Kaijin explained, bobbing around playfully at the end, “Kawaii musume!”

She took a moment to examine Ruru's “Platonic ideal.” It was an interesting ideal – a foot or so tall and wearing a Jeannie outfit, all gauzy and leaving very little to the imagination.

Peach soon brought a stein of coffee to Stowit, her body language somewhat deferential and hopeful.

She took a sip, then lifted her eyebrows in appreciative surprise.

“That's some damned good coffee.”

Peach smiled hesitantly, “It just seemed that you'd probably like it strong, so I mixed the light stuff for flavor with the dark roast for strength, only I wasn't really sure if I'd gotten it right. I-I'm really glad that you like it, though!”

Stowit smiled back, “If it doesn't need chewing, it needs work. Good gut hunch, there. Have we any hazelnut?”

Peach shrugged and looked over to Sonic, who shook his head, “Gotta get just a li'l a bit more north fer them, an' there weren't any in the wagon's supplies.”

“Bugger. Ah well, ainsi va la vie. 'sgood as is.”

 _Hazelnut_ , Peach thought to herself.

“So,” Sonic asked, “is she a good witch, or a bad witch?”

“I'm not a witch at all!” Peach piped up.

Stowit simply ignored him.

Over the course of the afternoon, Peach referred to her rescuer twice more as “Stowit,” prompting her to ask why she kept saying that. Peach explained, referring to her introduction during the rescue. Sonic balled up in laughter, while she alternated between silent disbelief at Peach and glaring daggers at Sonic.

Finally, she informed her “You may call me Sheik,” and stalked off, offering no further explanation.

=====

Peach rounded the crumbling stone wall as Sheik argued heatedly with Sonic.

“I have no wish for some useless trophy nor for an extra mouth looking to me as nothing more than the next escape ticket from her latest dilemma – and doubly so an honor-bound promise made under duress. When the itch gets bad enough, I'll simply rent a wench at the next tavern!” Sheik told him, and walked right into Peach, who stumbled backward from the impact. Her arm shot forth instinctively to catch Peach's fall, bringing a flush to Peach's face.

“I'm sure that Sonic would help, if you were to ask him for it – or if you just tell me where you're itchy, I'll be happy to scratch it for you, and you won't have to pay me anything at all!” Peach beamed, still leaning against Sheik's chest.

Sheik gaped at her, a muted flush of her own growing evident. She growled in frustration, glared at Sonic again, and stormed off.

“I said something wrong again, didn't I?” Peach asked, wearing a forlorn look as she faced him, her shoulders slumped in dejection.

“Nah, Princess,” he replied gently, “it was perfect. Ya said precisely what Z needed ta hear. It'll be a'ight.” He put his hand on her shoulder as they returned to the camp.

“You mean that she doesn't hate me?” she asked, hope rising anew as her pulse raced, desperately ready to grasp at any straw.

“See now, therein lies the story, y'know?”

Peach kept thinking about Sheik.

_She's always poised, like some predator. Feral. A big cat. Silent. Lethal. You never hear her moving, she's just suddenly there, or gone. She doesn't walk, she prowls and ripples._

She stifled a giggle as she pictured dangling a bell from Sheik's neck.

 _Her muscles sinewy whipcord, her whole body lean and powerful, coiled to strike on a hair trigger._ _As thin as she is, and even taking her height into account, she still looks as if she'd weigh no more than one hundred pounds soaking wet, though in truth she certainly seems far closer to two hundred._ _She's a mass of muscles, really, from the way that she didn't even budge yet sent me sailing just by bumping into me. I'd swear that I could actually take the non-bounciest material around, and shape it into the non-bounciest shape I can think of, and it would still bounce right off of her abs!_

_But she seems so... empty?_

_No. Hurt and immured, like a wounded cat puffing itself up and hissing at everyone from beneath a veranda while nursing a broken leg._

_And her eyes are always just a little tight, as if held against some long-accustomed pain..._

=====

“I've had a few wives, actually... but none of them were mine!” Sheik grinned and waggled her eyebrow to Sonic, then winked at Peach as they redistributed the dry goods and rearranged Epona's saddlebags and their own packs and satchels. They'd already made some headway into the fresh fruit and vegetables through the remainder of the day, and were now seeing to the less perishable items for long term provisioning.

Peach pondered this statement.

“Is that something like the man coming from Saint Ives?”

Sheik squinted at her, uncertain of how to respond.

_Could she truly be such a naif?_

“Why do people do that so much? I walk in and they suddenly change the subject, and act as if it never happened. Or I say something perfectly sensible and the looks on their faces just freeze. That or they laugh a bunch, thinking that I'd made a joke.”

“It was just a little unexpected, Princess. Don't worry 'bout it,” Sonic covered for them all.

That night, while the scent of honeysuckle that followed Peach everywhere was certainly pleasant, it also threatened to keep Sheik awake and drive her to distraction. This princess was as maddening as she was alluring, but her scent would fuel Sheik's fantasy as she relieved this tension that had been building up within her since last night.

With one arm up beneath her head, she reached down slowly and began the first gentle rub. A light brush across the hood, then a scraping nail barely touching her labia, followed by a pinch rolling upward, pulling...

Peach rolled over, burying her face in Sheik's armpit. Sheik froze.

Soon she was cooing gently from the depths of Sheik's pit.

She showed no sign of further motion, but that also left Sheik without many options. After some time, she decided that Peach was well and truly asleep, and returned to where she had left off.

Peach moaned quietly, forcing her nose still deeper into Sheik's armpit, now with her mouth open, her warm breath gently caressing the side of her breast, lips hovering just beyond her skin, and threw her arm across Sheik's waist so that her hand landed on Sheik's, their fingers now entwined a hair's breadth above her crotch, Peach's nail tips scraping her skin with a light rhythm. Sheik froze again. She couldn't move, could barely breathe for the thought of waking Peach.

Peach quieted again. She had to get this girl some night clothes, or her own tent, or both.

Sheik sighed.

_This. Is going to be a very. Long. Night._

=====

The second morning was just dawning. Sheik could smell it, feel it in every sense, but that's not what had woken her. She was lying still, looking almost directly up. Peach's naked posterior hovered inches above her face, staring right at her, hints of a thick earthy scent and a soft sweet scent commingled and bestirring her on several levels. While hardly an unwelcome sight, it wasn't what she'd expected.

 _Her musk is intoxicating._ Sheik's thoughts wandered lasciviously, her mouth falling open ever so slightly. _This is an ass I could just take a bite out of – or spank 'til it glows. Floating there, tantalizing... she's either a coy temptress indeed, or the most unaware_ _ingénue I've_ _ever encountered._

Peach shifted position as she finished arranging her dress.

“I didn't mean to wake you,” she apologized, realizing that Sheik was no longer asleep.

“It's alright,” Sheik replied, her voice thick, “go about your morning business. I'll be out in a few minutes. I just need to take care of something.” At least, that's all that she hoped she'd need, though there wasn't much doubt after last night – especially after having been greeted so upon awaking. _I can well imagine this girl's luscious lips wrapped 'round my nethers..._

Peach left quietly.

“Yo, Z. Time,” Sonic pushed his head in within a minute.

Sheik hurled a pillow and told him “I'll be out in two minutes – _just two damned minutes_!”

“Drop yer cock 'n' grab yer socks. We got company,” he replied dryly, and left again.

Five seconds later she was out of the tent, still buckling her baldric.

In the predawn mist, it was difficult to make out detail, but it was clear enough that a small force was approaching from the north.

“Dodongos,” Sheik said, seeing the lizard-like figures riding atop more-reptilian beasts, their dark armor and variety of weapons making clear their intention.

Scattered among them were fat, porcine-looking reptilian quadrupeds, bony celadon-skinned with splashes of rust-toned leafy patterns. Helmasaurs, trained for the hunt, the foremost two-thirds of their bodies sporting thick organic-steel shells with spikes and horns sticking out at random angles and vicious snapping beaks on necks that could extend a surprising distance in a lightning-like strike as they lashed out at the chosen target, they could dispense a powerful mule kick to the unwary.

Scanning deeper, she continued “and that's not all.”

“Goombas!” Peach exclaimed, spotting the fanged mushroom-creatures almost simultaneously, dismissing the turtle-like hatchet-wielding Koopa underlings entirely.

“Aye, and I know full well what they are,” Sheik replied coldly, “The question is how they come to be here. Now,” looking pointedly at Peach.

Peach opened her mouth to protest, but Sheik cut her off, saying “We've no time. We must away immediately.”

At this point, Tails had already gathered the collapsed tent and was hurrying to Epona with it.

“Enough! Take it or leave it, but I'll not tarry here with the trail so hot and these curs nearly on us,” at which Tails took to the air, his tails spinning and flapping about rapidly, dangling his cargo beneath. Peach was intrigued by this, having had no idea that he could fly.

“Coming, Princess?” Sheik asked, as she leapt to her mount.

The saddle chafed. _Damn it, this is part of why I always stay dressed at night. Balls, this sucks!_

“Sheik? I really have to go...”

“We're going as fast as we safely can,” Sheik told her over her shoulder.

“No,” Peach replied, squirming, “I mean that I have to _go_... I – I need to use the bushes.”

Sheik laughed.

“Well, you have two options, honey: go now or hold it 'til we get someplace safe. Three, if yer of a mind tae tuck and roll, but this horse isn't stopping until I'm satisfied that we've lost our pursuit for the time being.”

Peach fell silent for a few minutes, then squirmed once more.

“Sheik? I mean it, I _really_ need to pee!”

“I'm serious, too. I don't see that the situation's changed any, do you?” Sheik said, unrelenting.

Moments later, Sheik felt a warm trickle down the saddle. It surged, and as they cantered, she could feel the slap of the leather grow wet beneath her. Peach clasped her waist more firmly, as her dress soaked through and began to cling to Sheik's legs.

The hours went by slowly as they picked their way through what seemed to be the same patch of woods. Sheik refused to take the time to let Peach wash herself or her dress, and so Peach sat miserable, sure that she had brought about their current situation and that she was now causing Sheik nothing but disgust.

At one point, they reached a stream that they had taken earlier, this time much more slowly, and Epona's gait changed to a more downtrodden feel. The tracks that she left behind were as if from an entirely different horse.

Hours more passed by before they came to a rest. Peach's dress was now only mildly damp, barely enough to be aware of, but the knowledge of what it meant bore down on her as if a millstone were hung from her neck.

They ate quietly. There were some provisions in Epona's saddlebags, but Sheik had insisted on trapping dinner instead. The area was rife with rabbits **1** and pheasants **2** , and hence it had taken little time at all to snare several braces of each along a few game trails, enough to eat well for the next day or two certainly. There had been a low fire in a stone-lined rocket stove **3** , barely enough to cook with – Sheik had mixed some fat wood from the stumps of pine and branches with some dry needles, mumbling about the lack of birch bark or clothing lint while shaving long, thin strips from the interior of a long-dead stick. Snatches of rosemary hung in the air, in part from Sheik having seasoned their dinner with it, but in the main from the large bush to the side of their camp. Subtle undertones of thyme and mint laced through it as well, though much less so. The pine nuts with the meat had been an interesting and novel experience for Peach, the sautéed slices of puffball mushrooms went so well with the drippings, complementing the sharper flavor of the hen of the woods that Sheik had stuffed into the carcasses before roasting, and the plentiful handfuls of elderberries and mulberries made it all almost a homey-feeling meal.

There was still some tea left, with more easily made, and Peach was making the most of its warmth, letting its soothing effects wash through her. Sheik had collected mostly white cedar needles, tossing in some white spruce and fir needles and a few lightly crushed juniper berries for this **4**.

The evening had turned cool, and even the few remaining embers were small respite but welcomed warmth. Turning to scan the hillside, Sheik caught the shiver running down Peach's body, the girl just sitting there, accepting her situation passively. Against her better judgment, she added some more wood to the dying fire, coaxing life back into it as Peach's body language shifted to that of happy anticipation.

They sat deep within a fir tree, its branches and a thicket of hemlock shielding them from what little of the light breeze swirled past the rosemary, providing some envelope against the escape of their body heat, helped further by the crook of roots that lay astride a slight depression of the soil. The scent of cedar and damp humus lay heavy in the mist that was settling in. There was a must to it that hinted at snow, though there was little chance of that.

Peach was apologizing to Sheik for the fifth interminable time.

“Enough,” Sheik told her, “You seek to atone? Move forward a bit.”

After Peach had done so, Sheik stood up.

“Sit. Stay,” was all that she said.

Though Peach had no idea of what to expect, she proceeded to wait as instructed.

She began to turn her head to follow Sheik, but found herself turned forward, guided firmly by Sheik's hand, “Eyes front.”

Sheik stood silent behind her for a time. Peach began to wonder if Sheik were even still there, the beginnings of panic insinuating their way into her thoughts.

_Has she abandoned me?_

As she reached this thought, she was startled by a sudden wetness on her neck. Her mouth fell open as she realized what Sheik must be doing. She was mortified, but said nothing.

Her shoulders were drenched, and it ran down her chest and back before letting off. After a moment of quiet, Sheik sat down behind her, with her legs to either side of Peach, wrapping her arms around Peach's waist.

“Shh,” she whispered into Peach's ear.

Sheik tensed a little, and Peach's eyes grew wide as she felt a further warm wetness soak into the seat of her dress, as well. Sheik leaned back against the mossy lump at the base of the tree, pulling Peach back with her.

Saying nothing, they sat there, watching the twilight fall and the gloaming settle in, stirring only occasionally to tend the fire. The sky held some thin clouding that boded well for both some heat retention and minimal chance of rain.

Peach slept, soon enough. Sheik continued to hold her, watching against intrusion, thinking.

=====

“You may wash when I tell you that you may, and you will not ask a second time.”

Peach understood this, and didn't balk, but didn't understand why Sheik was doing this.

They had spent the night comfortably enough, but with the breaking day, their combined smell was becoming potent.

 _There's still another day or two of riding ahead of us before we reach the old mine that Sheik told me of. Apparently there's a safe house hidden within it. Am I to remain filthy for all of that time? Will I be permitted to wash even then?_ She didn't quite know what to feel about this. _It's degrading, but almost freeing, as if she had marked her territory, claiming me as her own._

In the end, she cast aside this line of thought as irrelevant. _I swore that I would be true to whoever might save me, and I intend to uphold that oath. I will follow Sheik wherever she goes in life. I will support her and be true to her, come what may. I will die at her side, if it comes to that._

_I just wish that I understood her better, and hope that maybe there will eventually be some measure of love between us._

=====

Dismounting, Sheik reached up to help Peach down. Mindful of her limitations, and seeing her standing there doing a nearly imperceptible dance, she was reminded of Peach's needs.

“You may go now,” she nodded to Peach.

Peach stilled, a look of relief washing over her. A moment later, a puddle formed beneath her.

Sheik pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.

“Perhaps I should have worded that more clearly. I meant that you may now go find a bush.”

Peach's entire demeanor sagged with relief. “I knew that. Of course,” she said as she walked stiffly to the nearest foliage.

Sheik closed her eyes and wrinkled her forehead to the sky.

“Bury it when you're finished!” she called out to Peach's retreating figure, unwilling to bet her life on the princess's camping experience. _Still though. Goddesses, there's no denying the allure of that ass, the natural, unaffected sway of her hips... she's a lightweight, can't weigh more than a hundred fifty, maybe two hundred, but damn if Nayru didn't bless her bounty twice over..._

“You liked it,” Sheik observed upon her return from the bushes. It wasn't a question.

Peach's eyes were down. She looked up and replied in a small voice “Yes.”

“Why?”

“It felt kind of as if you were telling the world that I belong to you.”

Sheik considered this.

“I might have use of you yet. If you're good.”

There was a hint of interest in Sheik's eye, a tiny uplifting in the corner of her mouth.

=====

They stopped at a sulfur spring early the next morning. The spring bed was beautiful, rich with swirls of color – seafoam and russet, titanium yellow and cornflower blue – while the spring itself was surrounded with ferns and crocuses, bird of paradise flowers and rose of Sharon, and overlooked by a fair number of banyan.

Sheik refused to refill the canteens there, but they bathed, and Peach washed her dress. Soapbark trees were always plentiful in this region.

Late that afternoon, they came to a defile, off at an angle to the game trail. Peach couldn't see it until they had already entered it. Now she could see how it wended its way between acacias and into a glade.

Coming to a small waterfall, Sheik dismounted, but motioned Peach to remain. She approached the waterfall, entered behind a thin curtain of water, and disappeared. Peach could hear her singing a soft melody, but couldn't make it out well. It was calm and soothing, rising and rising again, then wavering and falling back down like a wordless lullaby, telling a story of its own through pure melody.

She waited, but as the time passed and Sheik still hadn't returned, she grew nervous.

After what must have been only a few minutes, Sheik stepped back out through the curtain of water, and motioned for Peach to follow her in.

They entered a small, dry cave. Light streamed in through the water, and reflected from the surface of the cache at the base of the fall. Multicolored fish darted between the grasses and overhanging stone shelves. It was beautiful, but Sheik pressed on, giving it no heed.

Peach paused to admire it all, her eyes flicking to and fro with the fish.

“Your body language is that of a cat,” Sheik remarked in amusement.

Peach started, her eyes wide, as if found out.

“I spent a lot of time with my cats, growing up,” she explained, seeking to dismiss it lightly.

“Enough that you acquired more their mannerisms than Humans'?”

She remained silent, growing ever so slightly smaller.

“That was meant to be a joke, not a stumper,” Sheik said, her voice lower and more gentle this time, “Did you have no socializing?”

“I... spent some summers away at my cousin's palace, over in Piraputo,” Peach replied, her spirit rallying some.

Sheik's manner grew pensive.

When they reached the end of the cave, she pressed part of the rock face, and a crevice opened, broad enough to let them pass unhindered.

Beyond this lay a much larger chamber than the foyer.

“Ya fed the stray,” Sonic observed after a single glance.

“Stray? I want to see!” Peach cried out happily from behind Sheik.

“He's talking about you, dear,” Sheik told her over her shoulder.

Peach looked crestfallen, but not hurt.

“Well, she had to, didn't she? It was either that, or watch me go hungry for three days.”

“An' sleep in a cold bed!” he retorted.

“ _And_ sleep in a cold bed,” she repeated in earnest, nodding emphatically, her eyes wide.

“Can it, pincushion,” Sheik leveled at him.

She and Sonic locked gazes, but neither of them clarified his allusion.

“So... does that mean that I may continue warming your bed, Sheik?” Peach persisted.

“Marvelous! Sure, why not?” Sheik replied facetiously, throwing her hands into the air.

Having settled in with what they'd brought, and brushing down Epona, they told Peach their reason for being here.

They were at a Fairy Fountain. She had heard of these, but knew precious little about them. They were said to be the homes of Fairies, and sometimes containing one of great power, but she hadn't known of any existing beyond Hyrule itself.

Making their way through the tunnel, she could hear only the odd echoing drip of water leaching its way from above. Rounding a bend, she found herself within an expanse easily forty feet across, a pool occupying most of the floor space, with light filtering down from luminescent stones along the wall.

The Fairies **5** were to judge whether she were fit to accompany them. This made her rather nervous – she knew her own heart, but what if they made a mistake?

Around her, golden sparks appeared in the air and rose from the water as she stepped into the shallow pool, swirling slowly, eddying in response to currents that only they could feel. The air stilled, and the sparks scattered from her. Peach's nerves were galvanized, a coppery fear on her tongue.

The cave darkened, then glowed with a sourceless blue tinge.

Sheik dropped to one knee instantly, while the others bowed their heads – except for Peach, who had no conception of what was happening, other than that she was both terrified and suffused with a feeling of love and safety.

“Looks like yer gonna be stickin' around a while,” Sonic remarked as they made their way back to the main chamber.

Peach rubbed her arms nervously.

Looking back calculatingly, Sheik said “We'll need to get you some inconspicuous clothing.”

Peach's eyebrows knitted as she looked Sheik over.

“Nude is inconspicuous?”

Sonic and Ruru laughed as Sheik said nothing.

Digging through their stores, Sheik settled on a long sleeved blue halter over a white quilted cotton tabard and charcoal pants for herself, along with fingerless gloves and brown walking boots, and handed Peach something that Robin Hood might have designed for Little Red – a plum feathered cap, striking red cape, rich forest green skintight shirt beneath a simple gray tunic, dun leggings, and soft black riding boots. Both outfits were oiled against rain.

Peach was excited and greatly pleased by this; Sheik, however, found that Peach's tunic rode her hips in ever so distracting a manner – and the polished floor did nothing to help with its reflection beckoning her eyes thither. As she slipped stilettos into her boots' concealed recesses, her eyes kept sliding toward Peach, stealing glances as the girl became transformed with her new and most becoming outfit.

Sonic was whistling a tune as they returned, a cheerful tune, and one that he seemed to be taking inordinate pleasure in. By the self-satisfied smirk on his face between occasional glances at Sheik, it seemed a good thing that she didn't recognize the piece.

“So ahh... Nayru **6** , huh?” he asked, “She show up often, does she Z?”

“No, and you know that damned well, now leave it!” Sheik retorted testily. She was still shaken from the experience. She'd suspected the princess of being a mole, and had allowed for the possibility that she could be legitimate, but never once had it crossed her mind that she might actually have the blessings of Nayru upon her.

“Is it just me, or does she make ya think of a kitten wit' bags tied aroun' her feet?” he hazarded.

Her face held a thoughtful look at this, but she didn't have a chance to answer.

“I'm sorry to bug you guys, but what would have happened if she hadn't shown up? Or if the Fairies hadn't liked me?” Peach asked them timidly.

They glanced grimly at each other, then at Peach.

“Yeah. It wouldn'a been good, Princess,” Sonic said softly, then clapped his hands together and changed the subject, “So. Who's hungry? Blue, Hedgehog, needs, food, badly.”

“I need to get lit, anyway,” Sheik replied, and disappeared into the supply chamber.

=====

Sonic had prepared a stew of diced venison jerky from their supplies, a side of taktouka and fish with algae from the local area, and a bit of pasta from the cave's stores. Seeking to hold most of their ill-gotten food stuffs against later need, he opted to toss a few handfuls of beans and some grated cheese into the stew, to make it more robust. While their dinner took form, he had also set a sweetened port sangria to simmer for a digestif, the aroma of oranges and cinnamon filling the room along with the slight tang of green cardamom, and a simple mint tea with ginger for the main meal. The balance was pleasantly piquant and just a little earthy.

He'd also gotten out the fixings of a late-evening supper, ham and eggs on toast with hash browns to go with the leftovers and tide them over until breakfast. He was still debating what to serve for that – juggling a few disparate ideas of fabada, couscous, and malted milk – when dinner was ready.

As they ate dinner, Peach recounted her tale of abduction and seclusion. There had been a bas relief in her tower room, one of a Hylian-seeming woman – beautiful, but moreover reassuring. Sometimes it looked molded, sometimes natural, she could never quite tell which. It had been set within a shallow nook, opposite the transom. The surrounding stone had had a slightly bluish quality to it, with a constant trickle of water to either side. The lighting was always just enough to see it, and it had given off a slight phosphorescent glow at night, comforting her. She had begun talking to it, after the loneliness had become unbearable; she'd felt better for it, even though they hadn't been real conversations.

“Son of a bitch!” Sheik interrupted, belatedly realizing why it sounded so familiar, “You're saying that there was an altar to Nayru in that castle? That you prayed to her for your escape?”

Peach looked around, bewildered, and shrugged uncertainly.

That night, as she lay awake wondering about her future, dreaming of possibilities and fearing that she might have let Sheik down, Peach whispered a prayer to Nayru, not knowing if she would listen to one who revered the Stars, asking that she help Sheik find the peace that seemed to elude her.

=====

The smoke was rising in the north late the next morning, casting a pall across the horizon.

“Thick, dark, fast-risin'. Looks like the right spot. Waddya think?” Sonic asked Sheik.

She didn't bother responding, other than to turn away.

“I thought that you said that the old mine was another day's ride ahead of here,” Peach said, perplexed.

“Oh, aye. That. I lied,” Sheik told her. “Why do you think I kept setting you down and going back along our path on the first day? I had to know if you were a spy, so I fed you some information to see if you'd run off to tell them. You didn't, but our trail still led in that direction.”

She looked a little wounded at hearing that she'd been lied to, but brushed it aside, “But I thought that you said just now that the mining town was on the bad guy's side.”

“It was. Now they're gone. Warbotdorf's forces could no longer trust just which side the town was truly on.”

“You sentenced them to death, you mean.”

Peach's tone wasn't accusatory, but she was firm in her meaning.

“They sentenced themselves. I chose only when and how they died,” Sheik replied woodenly, “Now we wait here, lie low for a few days.”

That evening, Sheik listened to Peach's breathing grow quiet. The tent was unnecessary within the cave, and even the bedroll remained unused. They had some furs laid out from the cave's stores, with dry reeds layered beneath them.

At this point, Sheik was exhausted from the day's events and the ensuing discussions. _Still, I must grant that it's kind of nice that she has no bedroll of her own just yet; well... maybe the extra tent can wait a_ little _longer..._

She was out as soon as she hit the pillow.

Peach drifted off more slowly, and was nearly gone when Sheik's arm fell across her chest, her hand enveloping Peach's breast. Peach thought that it was intentional, and braced herself for whatever Sheik might wish of her, but nothing further came.

As she drifted off again, Sheik's leg suddenly wedged itself deep between Peach's thighs, her eyes shooting open, her lower cheeks now held firmly and far apart by Sheik's upper thigh. Peach's breathing quickened, sure that this was leading to something.

_Oh my Stars..._

Sheik moaned quietly in her sleep, her hand massaging Peach's breast gently, her fingers squeezing her nipple ever so slightly. She had no hope of palming the entire breast, but seemed intent on trying, come Hell or high water. Peach felt warmth rush through her, and a strange feeling almost like being hungry and antsy at the same time, but that was all that Sheik did. Soon, both were asleep.

=====

Sonic found Peach working her way through a yoga routine after breakfast the next morning. He didn't pay it much attention at first, but soon formed an idea as she flowed effortlessly through several rather impressive and distracting positions.

“You do this shit all the time, huh?”

“Mm-hmm!” she nodded, adjusting herself from a formidable face pose through bound side crow and praying mantis, ending in a one-arm compass.

Watching her movement, he could feel her striking capability. She was supple, graceful, and sure of herself.

_I wonder..._

Sheik stood there, waiting to see just what all of the mystery was about.

“Knock 'er fuckin' socks off, kid.”

Peach bent forward easily, bringing each leg behind her arms and neck, then rested her chin on her perineum.

Sheik stood rigid, unable to look away as Peach stretched out her tongue to the tip of her nose.

“Ang ah khang hih' ngai ho' hihk ing-kuh ngai ngoukhh, ang ho ngai 'ekh 'aw hee 'ing-ukhh!”

“She says she can also fit 'er whole fist in 'er mouth 'n' hold her breath fer three minutes.”

Sheik ground her jaw as her eye began to tic.

Her nostrils flared and her eyes closed, she swallowed and looked at Sonic.

“Asshole.”

With that, she walked away.

“Whoa, hey, ohh, huh? Wait a sec', Z – y'ain't seen what she can do wit' a cherry stem!”

Sheik merely waved her middle finger over her shoulder, replying “Not listening...” in a sing-song voice.

Sheik slapped Sonic over back of head as she returned for lunch, still pissed about the yoga demonstration.

“Da fuck crawled up your ass?”

“Nothing, thank you very much,” she replied sweetly.

“There's y'prob'm, then. No wonder yer so cranky. You gotta get laid.”

“Fuck you.”

“Not my job description, Z” he tisked, “– but'cher in luck! I just so happen ta know someone who's been sniffin' aroun' that position.”

Peach, watching this exchange, interjected “You're always so mean to each other, but you don't really mean it. Your words cover over what you won't say. You're family. You love each other.”

They looked at each other uncomfortably as she said this, neither of them voicing agreement, but nor did either actually show disagreement.

After several minutes of quiet, Peach sought once more to smoothe things over, this time with simple conversation.

“So... do you shave like a swimmer, or was there an accident?”

Sheik looked to her, confused.

“You seem to be hairless beyond your scalp and eyebrows.”

Sonic missed Sheik's look of disbelief as he held his fist to his face to hold in the paroxysm of laughter.

“Hylians aren't as hirsute as Humans,” she replied abruptly, inexplicably uncomfortable with Peach's curiosity.

The conversation lapsed into silence again, before moving on to more mundane matters. It wasn't long before it devolved to their more typical lobbies of friendly insults.

“Kiss my ass,” Sheik exclaimed.

“Bend over 'n' crack a smile!” Sonic replied.

“Fuck you!”

“You wish. I ain't touchin' that wit' Warbotdorf's dick, Tails pushin', an' Ruru takin' the blame!”

“Not in your wettest, wildest dreams, furball.”

“Psht! You couldn't handle me fer fi' minutes.”

“No shit. Your fleas would suck me dry long before that.”

“You suggestin' they're migratory, like coconuts?”

“Oh, don't start that shit again!”

“Are they always like this?” Peach asked Tails.

Tails looked at them for a moment.

“Like what?” he asked.

=====

“Oh my Stars, this is delicious! The flavor is complex, but comes together so well. What is it?” Peach asked.

They had left the Fairy Fountain several days prior and had been on the road since then. They now sat encamped within a shallow gash of rock in case of rain, opening onto a small meadow. The surrounding forest was thick enough that no wind made its way toward them, and what little made its way down the hillside continued onward to the gorge a few score feet farther along.

Sheik exchanged glances with Sonic, then watched Peach as he replied.

“Oh, ahh, well, y'know, couple o' handfuls o' watercress, some borage leaves 'n' chopped lemongrass bulbs, a bit o' acorn flour ta thicken it... the bits wit' a little snap to 'em are burdock root – the weed-lookin' things all around ya wit' the big elephant-ear lookin' leaves an' the burrs on top – bit of a pain in the ass, but the soil here is pretty loose. A few other things. Secret's _just_ a _tiny_ bit o' chicory root ta give it all some body an' bring the flavors together,” he told her evasively.

“But what other things? Come on, I really want to learn! I mean, it's kind of like soft ham, but then there are bits of soft crunchiness with a nutty flavor to them.”

Sonic set down his bowl and looked at her.

“Waddya suppose most people eat, Princess?”

“Food. I don't know,” Peach floundered.

 _Third base_ , he thought to himself.

“Birds, fish, game animals... bread and butter?” she continued.

“Yeah, a'ight, true enough – far as it goes. What about the average schmo, the commoners?” he pressed.

“I don't know,” she admitted.

“I'll help y'out a bit,” he relented, nodding, “in cities, 'sa lot like what'cha expect at'cher own table, just less rich 'n' diverse. Fewer foreign goods, an' spices're a real bitch, but herbs're common enough. Fresh vegetables, not so much, though more'n _you're_ used to. Fruit's hard ta come by. Now, haddya think a typical townsman makes out?”

Peach bit her lip, “Sort of like the city dweller, only less so?” she hazarded.

“Good, yeah. Precisely,” Sonic replied, “An' the peasant, if they ain't hung fer poachin'?”

She was out of her depth, and it was obvious.

“Tell ya what. Wouldja believe me if I toldja it's venison?

“Nah? How 'bout 'coon, maybe?

“Still think I'm pullin' yer leg, huh? Well, I _woulda_ gone wit' that or squirrel – maybe 'possum – but couldn't get any. Weirdest thing, but they seem to've all turned tail or some'n. A'ight. 's worm, wit' some grubs fer variety. Ya gotta drown the worms first, ta make 'em puke out all the dirt 'n' shit, literally, then ya run 'em through a rinse, an' y'good ta go fer whatever yer cookin'. **7** ”

Sonic fell silent and waited.

“And the big chewy medallions that looked like thick slices of sandwich meat?”

“Snail. **8** ”

“Big snail,” Peach observed.

“Bite'cher head off, man,” he agreed with a nod.

She looked at her bowl.

Picking up her spoon, she scraped together the last bit of soup from her bowl, scrutinizing it.

Putting it into her mouth, she chewed thoughtfully.

“Well,” she said slowly, “I can positively say that this is the best – _damned_ – worm soup that I have ever had. May I please have a second bowl, if there's enough to go around for everyone?”

Sonic stared at her in shock, then laughed loudly and punched her shoulder.

“Holy shit, Z, ya better take care o' this one. _She's_ a fuckin' _keeper_!”

Sheik just sat there, appraising.

**O ~~~ O**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **1** Rabbit snares: there are several videos on snares that are well worth watching, but here's one that covers a few different ways  
> ▐► [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOZK_dlZO4E&list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPZjyGGlpnZzCvvsOH0-tlgA&t=6s&index=22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOZK_dlZO4E&list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPZjyGGlpnZzCvvsOH0-tlgA&t=6s&index=22)
> 
> **2** Bird trapping: animal snares work well laid across the ground to catch a bird's foot, but there's a simple pit trap that's also worth knowing  
> ▐► [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcdv82aAQq8&list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPZjyGGlpnZzCvvsOH0-tlgA&t=1s&index=29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcdv82aAQq8&list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPZjyGGlpnZzCvvsOH0-tlgA&t=1s&index=29)
> 
> **3** Rocket stove: a simple way to burn fuel highly efficiently and with little chance of being seen. Two small pits are dug (one vertical, the other diagonal and angled into the base of the first); the vertical is then filled with sticks no taller than ground level, with the diagonal providing airflow, and the whole burning hotter and more efficiently than an open fire.  
> ▐► [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffldYo4EVCg&index=8&list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPZjyGGlpnZzCvvsOH0-tlgA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffldYo4EVCg&index=8&list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPZjyGGlpnZzCvvsOH0-tlgA)
> 
> **4** Tea: for an overview of the respective needle-teas, please see  
> ▐► [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdTcmexTBH0&list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPZjyGGlpnZzCvvsOH0-tlgA&index=13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdTcmexTBH0&list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPZjyGGlpnZzCvvsOH0-tlgA&index=13)
> 
> **5** Fairies: Their language is unusual, consisting entirely of the letter /L/ and syllables of L-plus-a-vowel. See Appendix E of "Seize the Deity" .pdf for details  
> ▐► <https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BG7P_sVezz8Dn5b8js_34yeAjSBhfN0v>
> 
> **6** Nayru: A Hylian Goddess, one of three in the main triumvirate (the other two being Din and Farore). There are quite a few other Gods and Goddesses running around in Light World, many not being of the anthropoid form that most might expect.
> 
> **7** Worm soup: Although I haven't had the need to try this for myself, I've seen reference to worms as a medieval dietary staple among peasants, have read of it being one in many places today (along with grubs and insects, typically roasted or fried but surprisingly sometimes candied [presumably other methods of preparation exist]), and recall them being specifically covered as a food source in USAF survival-CBTs (again along with the grubs and insects) which included the drowning-and-rinsing cycle specifically. One idea that I've seen mentioned repeatedly is to feed them cornmeal (or other food) for a day or two prior to consumption, in order to help purge them of environmental toxins (though I presume that this won't rid them of any parasites, bacteria, etc.) and change their flavor somewhat.
> 
> Some Googling indicates that aside from being high in protein (as one might expect), they're also higher in essential amino acids than meat or fish meal and a good source of calcium (and several other metals).
> 
> However accurate many of the articles might or might not be, different people will trust or distrust different sources. You might want to research this for yourself. Some places to start might be NPR or ScienceDirect.  
> ▐► https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691235/pdf/12614573.pdf  
> ▐► https://articles.extension.org/pages/69709/including-earthworms-in-organic-poultry-diets  
> ▐► http://ijpsr.com/bft-article/nutrient-content-of-native-earthworm-eutyphoeus-gammiei-beddard-of-tripura-india/?view=fulltext  
> ▐► https://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/56561.pdf 
> 
> If you're already gōnghé, then you might like a few recipes:  
> ▐► http://www.eattheweeds.com/cooking-with-earthworms-2/  
> ▐► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLRDaR2ywG1APiwUzeTwrJw 
> 
> CAUTION: EARTHWORMS ARE NOT THE SAME AS PARASITIC ROUNDWORMS.
> 
> **8** Snail: flail snail, specifically. Large creatures with some magical resistance.


	2. The Perils of Peach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peach finds Sonic an understanding and sympathetic teacher, Zelda finds Peach a tender nursemaid, and Sonic finds that Zelda can still surprise him even after nearly a decade together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **N.B.:** This chapter's footnote section is crammed, so I lack sufficient characters to even link back out to the main text, much less space for anchors in from the text, so you'll have to scroll back and forth or wait 'til you get to the bottom. Sorry about that! 😔
> 
> For the accompanying playlist / soundtrack, please see:  
> ▐► <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPYG6DgnCJHFlFe-u_MuZiew>
> 
> Foodies: yes, there are recipes available for a good number of the foods mentioned herein. You can find them in "Appendix F: Recipes" (and some few in the commentary / annotation, as with the rum pears flambé) of the .pdf of "Seize the Deity" at  
> ▐► [ https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BG7P_sVezz8Dn5b8js_34yeAjSBhfN0v](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BG7P_sVezz8Dn5b8js_34yeAjSBhfN0v)  
>   
> 
> 
> * * *

“Lizard bacon, anyone?” Peach sought to defuse the situation.

“ ' _Rodent Of Unusual Size?_ ' Now wuzzat really called for?” Sonic demanded, a caustic edge to his rising voice.

“She deserves to know,” was all that Sheik said.

“Now ain't the time.”

“And when will be, then? When the Grand High Muck-a-muck himself swoops down with all his forces and...” she trailed off, waving her hand in a circle.

Sonic didn't respond.

He didn't have to.

He knew that Sheik was right.

“Wait now, Sheik. You're saying that your real name is actually Zelda? Just like the imperial princess?”

Sheik looked calmly at Peach.

“No,” she said, “I'm telling you that I _am_ Zelda the imperial princess, Princess.”

“She died eight years ago. That's why they made Warbotdorf regent for the interregnum. I watched the funeral procession, the change of command, the inauguration. It was simulstreamed all over the intervision for weeks. I remember thinking at the time that it was so sad and beautiful at the same time. You're saying that it was all a huge conspiracy? A government cover up? Lies? I'm blonde, not stupid. And you don't need to impress me.”

Zelda arched her brow. “You disbelieve me. Ask me what only the Imperial Princess might have knowledge of.”

The princess paused.

“If you truly are who you claim to be, then tyë julderukavand avhiuk?”

“Yeuk, but anyone can learn Uruk-lambo, especially royals, nobles, and traders,” replied Zelda, “and that should have been ' _lyë_ ,' not ' _tyë._ ' Try again – just not Wolfen **1**. I could never get the hang of that; it's all howls and gargles to me. Were I to ask after a bathroom, I'd likely instead succeed only in informing some poor confused slob that the bananas were in the tar pit.”

Peach's attempts at twenty questions failed to find fault in Zelda's claim, but also failed to establish any validity to it.

The conversation wound down as they approached a small town.

“It's a balance of power, Princess. At low levels, it's all about whom people fear the most, at high levels... how much it will cost. And everybody wears a lean and hungry look about them.”

Zelda found herself lecturing on political machinations in light of the news that they'd seen posted upon their foray back into civilization.

A crier passed by, wearing a clapboard. It showed a standard P.R. shot of Peach, with some disturbing imagery. The crier yammered something about rebel forces and Stockholm Syndrome as he sold his papers.

“Babe in the woods,” Sonic remarked to Zelda.

He turned to Peach with a gleam in his eye.

“Ya know, you remind me of a babe,” he began.

“Oh, for fuck's sake, not that again!” Zelda interrupted, his cackling laughter providing counterpoint as he dodged her blow.

She turned to explain to Peach.

“ ' _Heinous_ ,' the headlines report. Sonic's trying to say that the paper is full of artists' renditions, the stories are carefully constructed fabrications, and the people are all paid tragedy actors – all that fits is news to print, in other words.”

=====

They had acquired cold weather gear while in town, and none too soon as a bitter wind blew in from the northwest, settling in with a foreboding cloud bank. They were now encamped deep within an aspen grove for the time being, having taken advantage of an opportunity to hunt.

As Sonic gutted the young boar **2** , he watched Peach watching him intently.

He smiled to himself. _She's an acute one, always payin' attention._

“Couldja gimme a hand gettin' this spit up onta the forks?” he asked her.

Peach snapped back to the present, hustling over to help him with dinner.

“Y'know what I wouldn't give fer some seasonin' rub 'n' banana leaves right now?” he asked.

She looked at him expectantly.

“A rub is some'n ya put on meat ta give it a certain flavor, an' the leaves ya' wrap aroun' the pig – they don't have ta be banana though, could be taro or ti, spinach is good too, or cabbage even, but they gotta be soakin' wet, whatever ya use – an' throw it in a bed o' hot stones, 'n' cover it wit' some more hot stones ta act like an oven, with a few more shoved in its gut. 'course, then I'd wanna throw in some clams, too, an' seaweed o' course, maybe some oysters 'n' mussels. Crab, fer shit sure. Get some pineapple slices inta the mix, a little coconut oil... I wonder if we couldn't fake it wit' some really sweet lemon or some'n; quince maybe...

“Here, put this water pan under the pig, ta catch the juices; the steam'll stick ta the skin a bit an' help catch the smoke some fer flavor. The water'll help steam the meat an' hold the smoke onto it; grease wouldn't hold the smoke nearly so good. Be nice if we had some kinda foil or some'n – but that's cool, we'll just baste it every so often, trap the flavor, an' 'at's gonna be some good shit, too, man, feedin' on acorns 'n' chestnuts 'n' truffles...”

He dug through his satchel and brought out a bag of wild rice, three smaller bags of chestnuts, walnuts, and dried berries, and a few dehydrated sweet potatoes. These he set next to a pile of hickory nuts, lying unshelled as yet.

“How did you learn all of this?” she asked.

Sonic looked at her, pondering how best to answer.

“Well, some of it ya learn from others, or trial 'n' error, some of it just comes from inside. Ya get a feelin' fer what'cha wanna do, ya taste in yer mind what it'll be like if ya mix things a certain way an' even'chly it just comes together on its own – not that it always works out o' course... fer the record, don't bother mixin' butter pecan ice cream wit' Balsamic vinegar.”

Peach thought about this.

“Could I learn how to do all of that?”

“Somehow I had a feelin' you were gonna ask me that. Yeah sure, kid. C'mere, siddown. Park it, 'n' we'll talk while this thing cooks. Hell, 'sgonna have ta rest a good half-hour when it's done, just ta let the juices settle an' the meat ta finish cookin' inside, so I'm officially enlistin' you ta keep the damn' wolves at bay, if they notice it's almost ready.”

As he talked with her about food, they chopped some apples that he had collected, jalapeños and tarragon from their recently topped-off supplies, and mushrooms from nearby the boar's nest.

“Vinegar isn't just vinegar, lemme tell ya. Aside from the obvious differences between white and red, there's the fact that apple, grape, 'n' rice ain't alike at all, and nut'n' – I mean nut'n' – compares to Balsamic. Shit, wait'l we really get goin',” he interlaced his fingers and grinned an evil grin as he cracked his knuckles for emphasis, “You'll have some pretty strong opinions about olive oil in no time flat. Oh, and wines? You'll go straight ta real Madeira every time, when it comes ta cookin' ingredients.

“First things first, though: these chestnuts? Y'see how they got this four way split in 'em? 'at's what'cher lookin' for. You get one wit'out these crosshairs, an' yer lookin' at a horse chestnut – but don't let that name fool ya: those're just as bad fer horses as they'd be fer you. Water chestnuts're O.K. though; those grow under long iris-lookin' leaves in water, so ya can't confuse 'em like ya can wit' horse chestnuts. I'll show ya sometime, if we get far enough south.

“Now, this boar'd be a'ight with habanero or serrano o' course, ta give it a li'l kick, though not so much with ancho maybe; sorta the wrong smokiness. Ooh, or cayenne, though we'd need mesquite wit' the hickory fer the fire, then; it's got just the right smoky flavor ta match the bite o' the peppers. Now, if I _had_ some serranos, I'd wanna pair 'em wit' beef instead, an' potatoes 'n' carrots, some celery. With habaneros, I'd prefer ta go wit' chicken 'n' mango, maybe a li'l cilantro, an' just a dash o' cinnamon. Jalapeños'll go wit' pretty much anything though.”

He placed a tin can on its side in the pan of water and juices.

“What's that?” she asked as he settled back down.

“Some maple, walnut, 'n' birch sap, an' a bit o' honey. When we camped yesterday ta start this hunt, I tapped a bunch o' trees. It's too cold to get shit out'f 'em, but ya' hit enough of 'em an' ya' get a little some'n ta work with. I lucked out 'n' ran into a hive while I was tappin'. What this baby really needs is some lime juice, but we ain't exactly in the right area fer that. Meh, 's O.K.. We got some trout that'll go nice with it. Not as good as snapper, but'cha make do wit' what'cha got. Shit of it is, wit' this trout, we could really use some lemon-pepper 'n' a bit o' cream – just a little though; ya gotta handle fish all delicate-like, an' a little seasonin' goes a long way – an' maybe some salsa verde. Oh well.”

They began to chop leeks, mustard greens, cattail tubers and leaves, and aspen inner bark.

“When we're done with alla this, I'll show ya how ta smoke meat 'n' fish, an' make pemmican. We're gonna need plenty o' both in this weather; maybe throw together some more hardtack too, long as we got the chance. We'll get some vinegar, sugar, 'n' picklin' lime later – the chemical, not the fruit – an' I'll show ya how ta preserve food a whole bunch o' different ways – the gravlax'll prob'ly surprise ya.

“Now one thing ta keep in mind is it's absolutely freakin' vital ta pick the right type o' firewood 'n' how wet or dry it is, whatever yer doin'. Wit' the oils 'n' resins, the aromatics in the smoke, what temperature it burns at, an' how ashy it gets 'n' everything – 'snot _just_ as important as the ingredients, it _is_ one o' the ingredients...

“You notice the wood I got under this pig? It ain't just a bunch o' bits from wherever, it's a carefully balanced mix o' beech, maple, 'n' hickory, an' that balance'll change as we get ta smokin' it just a bit more wit' the slightly wet stuff later, so it can smoke cooler an' longer. Take a look at the smoke. You see how right now it's barely there an' kinda blue-ish, an' ya can't really smell it? 'at's what'cha want.”

She eventually surprised him with a tip of her own for crispy crusts through a mix of half water and half eighty-proof alcohol, which impressed him more than she realized, as did her suggestion of duck eggs for chewier cookies and fluffier eggs, which he'd already known, and better-rising cakes, which he hadn't known. He also made note to try something like this the next time that he made pancakes, just to see if he couldn't get them a tiny bit fluffier and more absorptive.

When the time came to eat, he mostly let her be, but not before admonishing her to savor the meal with every sense and file it all away for later discussion, and comparison and contrast with meals yet to come.

=====

“What do you think people do when they're naked?” Zelda probed, her drink and suspicions getting the better of her more-reserved tongue.

“Swim, talk, sleep...” was all that Peach came up with.

Zelda nodded, swiftly moving on to other topics.

“Shit, she's a fucking virgin, Sonic! What the hell am I supposed to do now?” Zelda resumed her pacing.

Peach was sound asleep, having fallen into a food coma, contentedly stuffed on roasted boar, trimmings rich with flavor, and rum pears flambé with cinnamon and pecans. The pears had been reconstituted from chips, but Sonic had figured that they could all use a treat. Tails and Ruru were immersed in some board game of their own devise **3** – the rules kept changing, but its current incarnation seemed to involve a complicated board and the recycling of removed pieces: half of a liù bo board in front of each player with senet tracks forking outward to a pair of nine men's morris boards that braced either side, these in turn abutting an agon board between them, and surakarta loops around the morris boards' outer corners and the agon board's central corners – and currently debating the addition of a Northcott-nimber staging area between the morris squares and the agon field.

They were unlikely to be disturbed any time soon.

“Tab A, slot B... I don't really think virginity plays inta the mechanics of it all, Z. Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right – two girls, one up, y'know? Just sayin'.”

“Dammit, Sonic, I mean it.”

“I dunno what ta tell ya, Z,” Sonic began, “Yer an abrasive, thick headed pain in the ass, but the kid's nuts about'cha – oh, an' did I mention high-handed an' acerbic?

“What'cha do on yer own time is your watch, dude, just don't fuck this up. Whichever way you jump, ya better get it right.

“You know I love ya, Z,” he continued in a calm voice, “so you know I mean it when I promise you this. That girl cries? I hunt you down. I beat the livin' crap outta you.”

Zelda nodded, waving this off as if it were a forgone conclusion, a law of nature.

“You like her, huh?” Sonic commented as Peach stirred the pot.

She looked up at him and smiled, then glanced over toward Zelda, who had her bow unstrung and was busy oiling it, a block of wax standing by for the polymer string. A double-shelf recurved composite with stiff alloy tips and cams to permit a shorter arm yet a more-controlled draw, it looked so very different with the tension released. A warm calmness suffused her as she watched Zelda's fingertips work the oil into every groove... her attention locked onto the task... massaging every inch of the bow's surface slowly and carefully... a loving caress...

“Hey – eyes on the pot, you,” Sonic reminded her gently.

Peach blushed immediately and returned to dutifully ensuring that none of their dinner overcooked. It was a large pot, fairly full of diced peppers, crushed garlic, chunks of onion, chopped walnuts, and ground boar simmering in olive oil. The cloves, cumin, and sofrito had added a rich, complex body to the scent, and she was really looking forward to seeing how it all came out – which reminded her to check the bone marrow stock that they'd set to simmer at the beginning.

They'd finished the last of the fresh pork the day before, and preserved the rest in several different ways. Sonic was currently arranging some tomatoes, wine, olives, and capers on their improvised sideboard, awaiting her next step. There was a pile of small pumpkins after that. It wasn't nearly as difficult as she had envisioned when he first proposed this, and she was really grateful for his teaching her. Plus the macaroni and cheese that they were going to make to go with the stuffed pumpkins sounded really good, though he'd said that that would have to wait until the pumpkins were almost ready.

“Don't get discouraged, kid. She's a tough nut ta crack, but I got a feelin' y'not barkin' up the wrong tree there.”

She smiled with a renewed and warm hope at this.

Sensing their attention, Zelda asked without looking “What're you two on about?”

“Ahh, y'know, ships 'n' shoes 'n' sealin' wax.”

Zelda nodded, no hint of belief about her, and returned to her oiling.

=====

Leaves turned and fell away, the skies steeling steadily and ever more gray as they headed north to higher latitudes and greater altitudes. Crossing some indeterminable point in the land, winter had set in early. A wet, fluffy snow clung to everything.

Making their way farther east, the weather settled in for the long haul. The snow changed to drier stuff, more packed, layered with thin sheets of brittle crunch every few inches deep, spoondrift sloughing up periodically. The wind no longer blustered, seeming to have chosen the better part of valor to go home and sit in front of a nice warm fire. Even so, their snow goggles remained in place. The sooted slits in the suede afforded them only a thin view of the world, but greatly reduced the glare and the spiking pain of frozen eyes with the odd gust.

Villages came less often, towns only rarely.

Samhain found them in a village, small bonfires alight throughout. The residents were in such festive spirits with mummers and mummenschanz, Morris dancers, harlequins, Green Men and Cernunnoses and woodwoses, plays, puppeteers, and vendors that the party was soon caught up in the moment.

They decided to stay at The Dancing Badgers and rest some, taking in a performance of _Riverdance_ as they began to eat. The public room bore a friendly-feeling smell of old wood beams, stews and roasts, and fire pits.

A day-long goose dinner, with all of the trimmings – mead and mulled wine, garlic bread, barmbrack, cidered caraway cakes and applesauce, cornbread, thick oatmeal, English muffins with shredded turkey and sharp cheese, roasted chestnuts, savory bread stuffing, creamed corn, lamb stew, pumpkin soup with butternut squash and turnip, stewed cranberries with a Balsamic and Madeira reduction (Sonic had sent his compliments over this, and the head cook had come out to chat for a while), colcannon, stuffed peppers, potatoes au gratin, soul cakes and jam, Lughnasadh pies, candied yams and pears, plum puddings, pomegranate sorbet, lemon meringue and Key lime, apple cobbler, pumpkin and sweet potato pies. The food was non-stop.

“Be sure ta down alla the fat 'n' juices ya can. We need the calories – _winter is comin'_.”

“Calories, the man says?” Zelda waved down a waitress, taking a slightly more commanding tone as she asked “Entschuldigen Sie, bitte, aber... haben Sie gutes Bier? Wurmvater Totenkopf-geburtstag Dunkelbräu – _mit_ den leuchtenden _eldrische Runen_?”

“Förlåt, jag förstår inte...” the girl replied, her speech a song-like cadence, shaking her head and shrugging in response as she held one of her hands faced palm upward.

“Oh. Umm – har du...” Zelda rolled her hand rapidly around a few times, fingers extended, as if to speed her memory, “... _bra_ öl? _Wurmvater Totenkopf-geburtstag Dunkelbräu_... ehh, Ormfader?”

“Åh, Ormfader? Ja-ja! Hur mycket vill du ha?”

“Emm... liter-liter. _T_ _vå_ liter?” she held up two fingers hopefully, pointing to each and bouncing her hand twice.

The waitress wasn't long in returning with a pair of small untapped casks, and sure enough, they were possessed of glowing runes. She smiled warmly as she set them down, taking her time to place the glasses just so, ensuring Zelda a _very_ good view down her camisole. Winking none too discreetly, she turned away to see to the other customers.

“ _Kanpai!_ ” Ruru shouted, downing her first tumbler without pausing for air.

Peach seemed fairly happy, but a bit withdrawn, staring into her fourth coquito.

Sonic looked over to Zelda, then back to Peach.

“Family?” he asked.

She nodded. “I mean, you guys are my family too, now, it's just...”

“Yeah, 'scool, we get it,” Sonic smiled, “Y'know, this stuffin' ain't half bad, but it's got nut'n' on my grampa's shit. Ton o' bread 'n' butter, apple sauce 'n' juice, powdered sage. The chopped onions are important, an' a whole bunch o' chopped organ meats, but the key to it all is the cinnamon an' raisins. It ain't sweet or nut'n' – fer alla that, it's act'chly savory. I'm tellin' ya, that shit's ta die for; we'll make some soon's I get a chance, you'll love the shit. Remind me ta teach ya his kidney bean stew while we're at it – crushed stewed tomatoes, elbow macaroni, bits o' sausage, diced carrots 'n' celery, kidney beans... good stick-t'yer-gut 'n' warm-y'up shit. 'course, he also called it slumgullion, but it was always the same ingredients, so I don't think he really meant it.

“Y'know,” he continued, “he had a wicked sense o' humor, too. I ever tell ya the one about the leper? Wait, y'know the symptoms o' leprosy, right? A'ight, so this leper walks in a bar, see...”

As he cajoled Peach, several bards began making rounds through the common area, playing an instrumental folk round.

Zelda's next rounds of Wurmvater arrived. As the waitress dropped them off, Zelda waving away the new glasses, Sonic caught sight of the brewery's sigil. A stylized Dragon holding up a pestle for no apparent reason, with a palace depicted in the background.

“Oh yeah,” Sonic muttered to nobody in particular, “ 'cause _that_ ain't gonna confuse no one _at all_!” The sarcasm was thick enough to be obvious even to the waitress, whose command of Common was rather limited, though almost none could discern just what he was referring to or why. Ruru glanced toward him, then in the direction of his gaze – the brewery's sigil – and burst out tittering.

Then he caught sight of a small purple splotch just above the dragon's thigh – a pimpernel.

“Ah c'mon, that ain't even the same freakin' one!”

As evening came on, a dozen women took the stage and played haunting melodies of pipe and drum.

When the festivities were over and all sat around basking in the glow of good food and more drink, still munching away on æbleskiver, a wide variety of oznei Haman, and chocolate-glazed cream-doughnuts with strawberry jelly as the fire logs in the central hearth burned low, Zelda began singing, swinging her mug of gløgg in time to the beat.

“ _Gutår, båd natt och dag!_  
_Nu vällust, nytt behag!_  
_Fukta din aska!_  
_Fram, brännvinsflaska!_  
_Lydom Bacchi lag!_

 _Gutår, båd natt och dag!_  
_Si, vår Syster Kajsa Stina,_  
_si, hur hännes flaskor skina?_  
_Kära ta hit stopet,_  
_kära ta hit stopet;_  
_grina – grina, svälj och drick, som jag...._ ”

Sonic and Ruru joined in, well in their cups. Peach didn't know the song, or even the language, but she enjoyed the boisterous spirit, and was soon humming along with the rest. After a few verses, the other patrons at nearby tables were singing as well.

Before long, the tavern wenches were swept up in the moment, circulating amongst all and playing the part of Ulla Winblad as Nymph, Goddess, and tavern prostitute. Though none were Nymphs, all flirted often and outrageously with Zelda, who reveled in it.

Sonic glanced over to Peach as she took it all in with a smile.

He leaned over to her and said “Yeah, she's a total chick magnet a'ight. Like flies on shit, everywhere we go. Dunno what it is. She flirts a bit, an' 'at's about it. Maybe the fact that she don't pursue it any further intrigues 'em, so they see her like forbidden catnip, but what do I know?”

=====

“Shouldn't we stick to more populated regions? Aren't you afraid of the brigands and monsters that they warned us about back there?” Peach asked as they continued along the increasingly empty road, the trees long bare of their earlier autumn coats, a mantle of white laid out across the land.

Sonic glanced over at her with a smile, as Ruru and Tails shared a lighthearted laugh.

Zelda replied “ _We are_ what goes bump in the night, Princess,” winking at Sonic.

Peach mulled this over.

“You know, that's really _not_ very reassuring at all.”

“Two pretty girls alone in woods? Only pets come too? No safe here; we keep you warm, ah?” a deep voice asked, rich with menace and mirth. A large man, Human, stepped out into the path from behind an ancient oak tree. Two more came around the other side of the tree.

“Bakayaro. You should not have done that...” Ruru announced disparagingly, beginning to shadow box atop Epona's head complete with sound effects, as an eight inch frozen tuna appeared in a sheath that was now belted to her back.

As Peach watched the men, she became uncomfortable, seeing another two sauntering out onto the other side of the path.

While they were not yet flanked as such, the path itself was barred not five paces hence.

Zelda and Sonic shot their heads at each other.

“ _Mine!_ ” they said simultaneously.

They held their glares a moment longer. Sonic waved the back of his hand, dismissing it, returning his attention to the pepperoni in his other hand.

Nobody behind the party to close off their options or harry their actions, no ranged suppressing fire support, no overwatch in the trees or uphill, an indefensible position, the aggressors' own options limited to one dimension – and they'd clearly performed absolutely no recon on their intended targets.

Their loss.

“Fine, you keep 'em – but I got dibs on the next bunch o' mooks. Fuckin' amateurs.”

Zelda dismounted easily as the first man came forward a few steps and stood there.

Peach glanced nervously to Sonic, who smiled and said “No prob'm. She's got 'em outnumbered one ta five.”

Ruru nodded her head sharply in agreement, “Onii-oni taught her well,” she added in a rare display of approval.

Her worried frown turned to a confused frown as she returned her attention to Zelda and the strangers.

The man wore an ugly smile as his eyes roved along her body.

“Pets no good skin, lunch maybe. Girls we keep warm, ja?”

She could smell the stale sweat and rank breath from where she stood.

Taking two paces forward, she stopped and glanced at the brigands lounging around casually in the background, looked up to the sky. Cracking her neck, she announced calmly “Walk away.”

They laughed.

“Listen, hure–” the leader started, his hand crossing to his pommel.

Time not-time. Sound that isn't.

Forward. Left.

Hyoid and lower ribs.

Wrist and armpit.

Hilt. Scum, trees, people, trees, scum, intestines.

Reverse, up, blood. Down, chest.

Knee.

Birds. Air. Light. Time.

The blur stopped even as it started. Zelda stood as she had a heartbeat before, only with blood now covering her breeches and some spray on her face. The man was practically quartered, a gash opening his right side, another drawn from crotch to throat, his falchion half-buried in his chest.

He was still choking, his larynx crushed and blood frothing from his mouth, his arm hanging useless by his side, leg bent at an unnatural angle, face caught between a sneer and shock. Then he collapsed, inert.

“Next,” Zelda announced, facing the path in general, staring at the ground.

“Don't. Fucking. Move,” was all that Sonic said, even as Peach thought to do so. The air was stiff, pointy, almost painful.

The other brigands had turned tail and been gone for the past minute or two, but nobody else had yet moved.

As if considering his rucksack for a midday nap's pillow, Sonic placed it onto the ground calmly. Rummaging through it, he withdrew a loaf of dark bread. Pumpernickel.

Breaking it open and wafting it around slowly, he approached Zelda, bread outstretched, nonthreatening.

Zelda turned toward him, but something about her didn't look right. It wasn't that she couldn't see him, but that she looked right through him. Her breathing was deep, controlled, mechanical. She focused on the bread, blinked, blinked again more slowly, and took it.

Sonic relaxed.

Returning to the others, he said “She's cool. Just gonna be a bit fucked fer a while. Give 'er a bit ta come back.”

Peach simply stared at Zelda in pure fangirl hero-worship.

“Dumme Hosenscheißen _Schweinhunde_.”

Slapping Peach's arm lightly with the back of his fingertips to get her attention, Sonic continued “Don't treat her all funny-like – just... just don't move fast or nut'n'. Least not fer an hour or so, anyways.”

He considered things as he riffled through the brigand's pockets. As he'd expected, nothing but the falchion and a coin purse containing a dozen different currencies. _Maybe forty bucks._ Even his snowshoes were worthless home-jobs, just some sticks and vines.

“A'ight, let's get goin' then. An' keep yer eyes peeled fer a decent campin' spot.”

“What about the body?” Peach asked.

“What about it?” Sonic replied, “His ticket's punched. Either somebody'll find it, or some'n'll get hungry soon enough. Fuck the fuckin' fucker.”

“O.K., but also it's barely mid-morning. We still have five or six hours of daylight left.”

“Yeah, 'bout that. We're takin' a siesta.”

Zelda took out a cigar and lit it, staring into the distance.

Peach could smell something else coming from her. It wasn't blood or offal, though those were there aplenty. It wasn't the tang of exercise. This was something thicker, heavier. More animal. A meat scent. The scent of a hunt. It went straight to the back of Peach's throat and the base of her skull. She suppressed an urge to go breathe next to Zelda, to lick her neck.

They encamped within a copse not much farther down the trail.

Zelda and Peach shared a bottle, before Zelda headed to bed early.

A few minutes passed in companionable silence, the fire crackling.

“So,” Sonic began, “now that'cha seen what Z's capable of, haddya feel about it?”

Peach replied immediately, knowing exactly how she felt in this instance.

“She was amazing,” she said breathlessly, “the way that she was so calm and collected, and then _swoosh_! She didn't waste any time, she just destroyed the highwayman.”

“Uh-huh,” he replied, “and?”

“And...”

“An' he's dead. Stone dead. He ain't comin' back tomorrow. He's gone. Any friends 'n' family've lost him forever. No more quiet nights 'round the fire, no more kisses stolen under moonlight, nut'n'. Just dead,” Sonic finished quietly.

“And if she hadn't killed him? What then?” Peach asked, “Would he and his cohorts have simply asked the time of day and been on their way? I think not.

“They were bad men. They might not always have been, and maybe they could have changed, but as it stands, they chose their own paths at the moment, and fate came with the winds.”

He pursed his lips. “And it coulda been us lyin' there just as easy, 'steada him, yeah.”

“Would you teach me?” she asked him directly, “I wish to fight as she does, to stop people who won't otherwise stop.”

Sonic didn't say anything. His face didn't change, but still looked harder than it had a moment before, a ghost passing across his face.

He turned and stared into the fire.

Time enough passed that Peach decided that he wouldn't answer her on the subject.

Finally he turned back to her and simply said “Yeah.”

He looked sad, old; almost as if he regretted something lost, “Ya don't hafta be a weapon, ya know. You are who ya choose to be. You choose. You can be Superman.”

Another pause.

“Tomorra mornin'. Early. Be ready.”

He then returned to staring into the fire, saying nothing more.

“Why does Zelda smoke so much? And always only those funny-smelling cigars? What's in them, anyway?”

Sonic hesitated, “Nightmares. Can't say more'n'at. Ya' gotta ask her.”

“Does it happen to everyone? The nightmares and spaciness and stuff?”

“That ain't where her nightmares come from, but nah. Depends. 'sno prob'm fer me, I... _came ta terms_ wit' things... a ways back – but she's nicer'n me,” he said, “an' _you're_ a _lot_ nicer,” he added pointedly.

“Look,” he tried, “she coulda' paralyzed that guy six ways ta Sunday 'steada killin' him. She chose ta kill him, make no mistake. If she hadn't, then yeah, we'd prob'ly'a' had ta beat the shit outta his boys, an' he prob'ly woulda' gone 'n' raped 'n' killed a whole lot more people later, but that don't change the fact that she killed him, an' that she did so by choice. There's a huge gap between law and justice. Think about what that means to 'er. Years of it.”

When Peach crawled into their bedroll, Zelda awoke slightly and scooched backward toward her in order to be the little spoon. Peach held her in her arms, brushing her hand slowly over Zelda's hair, rocking her gently.

Half a dozen cigar roaches sat stubbed on her side of the bedroll.

Morning. Still dark out, with a hint of false dawn touching the horizon.

Peach crept out quietly from the tent.

She and Sonic made their way to a clearing not far away.

Looking her up and down, then around the small clearing, he asked “How many fights ya been in?”

“Do cats count?”

He tilted his head, “How big?”

She thought for a moment, then held out her hands about shoulder length apart.

“Meh. Fer hand-eye, sure. Maybe readin' their movements fer telegraphin'. 'sabout it.”

“Hit me,” he told her.

She hesitated. They'd already drilled some in basic stances – horse, tiger, crane, mantis, cat, and others – arm positions, safe fist formations, and a few other things, and she'd quickly gotten the hang of punching and kicking a dummy of leather-wrapped pussy willow, but this would be her first attempt at actually hitting another person. She really didn't like the idea of hurting him.

“Did I fuckin' stutter? Hit me,” he repeated, his voice pushing, cutting.

Suddenly she was looking sideways, her face burning from his strike.

“I'm not'cher friend. I'm either yer target or yer killer. Hit me.”

She lunged halfheartedly, but he moved.

She found herself face down in the snow and frozen earth.

“Wipe me outta existence, or I kill ya.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than he became a blur of blue and brown, tumbling sideways. The blur came to a stop ten feet later. He and Zelda faced each other in guarded positions.

“What the faeck are ye doing?” she demanded in a low growl.

They moved in a slow circle.

“Teachin' her ta fight,” he replied evenly.

“I _know_ what the faeck ye're doing, now what the faeck are ye _doing_?” she repeated.

“She. Asked. Me.”

With that, it was as if a door to Pandemonium itself had closed, the violence in the air dissipating as abruptly as it had arisen.

Zelda's eyes moved to Peach. She lowered her arms, though her face remained deadly serious.

“You. Camp,” she turned back to Sonic, “You. With me,” and headed in the other direction.

An hour passed as Peach and Tails readied breakfast.

A second hour passed nervously. They didn't break camp, had no direction to follow, barely talked.

At the end of the third hour, Sonic and Zelda returned.

They sat at the fire, still lit for warmth.

Neither one said a word, nor so much as looked at anyone else.

Taking food, they stared at it, as if seeing it for the first time.

“We'll be staying here for a couple of days,” Zelda announced, “We could all do with a rest. Princess, Sonic is going to show you a few things. You will learn them well, and you will practice them at every turn. That is not a request.”

=====

“A hunnert push-ups, a hunnert sit-ups, a hunnert squats, an' run ten kilometers every day – preferably parkour. Just trust me, you'll have the speed o' lightnin' an' roar o' thunder in no time flat. A perfect five outta seven.

“Remember ta stick ta smooth explosive motions, twistin' but not circular. Don't telegraph a fuckin' thing to me, just attack or defend or run or whatever right outta the gate. You see me put my hands up, ya know I'm lookin' ta hurtcha; I don't do shit, an' you got no clue from Jump Street.

“Hard ta soft, 'n' vice versa; round ta straight, 'n' vice versa. Y'know all those weak points I showed'ja? They're all shear planes, pressure points an' shatter points, nerve clusters, easily hemorrhaged bits, an' vital organs. Hit 'em right, 'n' you'll dislocate their joints, stop the heart, rupture their spleen or appendix or arteries; stuff like that.

“Blockin' is fine if it works for ya, especially ta steal their momentum ta help push ya in another direction, but parryin'll keep ya from bein' _forced_ inta that direction, an' a simultaneous interceptin' attack'll cause 'em damage at the same time. Doin' that ta two or three points at once'll keep 'em off balance 'n' can be split between multiple opponents.

“Ultimately, ya wanna punch from yer centerline, use yer triceps 'n' hips, keep yer fists loose 'til impact an' yer kicks low, stay loose, shoot fer about sevenny percent extension, an' aim fer maybe an inch or so past the strikin' point.”

As Sonic lectured, he was also putting Peach through her paces. For the moment, she was only moving through a simple set of motions – blocking, advancing, spinning, feinting, striking – but all the while her attention was divided between these and his rhetoric. He'd already established that he wasn't teaching her anything that her body didn't already know, and she was beginning to see his point; as long as she didn't pay it much attention, her muscles placed themselves where they needed to be automatically, and far faster than had she chosen to move consciously in any particular fashion. It was like ice skating, just... more full contact than usual. Flips, rolls, and break-falls were fun, too.

“If this is the basic stuff, then what are the advanced techniques like?” Peach asked.

Sonic smiled humorlessly.

“The advanced stuff is fer _not_ killin' an' maimin'. Right now, yer learnin' what'cha need ta know ta survive. Period. 'snot about bein' fair or nice. Ya kill or destroy whatever's comin' atcha, or they do it ta you. That's it. The secret o' winnin' is that the pointy bit goes inta the other guy. The secret o' not losin' is simply goin' wherever their pointy shit ain't gonna be – be like water, respond ta yer environment, feel the flow, fill the shape.

“Just don't get too carried away an' shit, y'know? Before zen, there's wood ta be chopped an' water ta be drawn; then there's zen; after zen, there's wood ta be chopped an' water ta be drawn.”

Sonic placed a stone on the grid.

“Happenstance, coincidence, conspiracy – an' you can bet good money it ain't gonna be no co-inky-dink. If some'n just don't make sense no matter hayya look at it, it's usually 'cause someone's up ta some'n. Ask yerself how someone could benefit from it, an' who – 'n' when ya got a good answer, look fer a better one. Fer that matter, if it's so easy ta see, yer prob'ly missin' some'n an' walkin' right into it.”

Peach thought about this, eyes roaming the impromptu board. She knew how to play go, and was good at it, but Sonic's stratagems were thoroughly unorthodox.

“When we reach civilization again, I'll see about pickin' up a few other games. Chess, xian qi, shit like that. 'snot about playing some game or jugglin' moves 'n' lookin' ahead. 's about seeing what I'm not doin', watchin' what I'm thinkin'. The words I use can tell ya' more'n what I say. Watch my body language, listen to little changes in my voice – but'cha gotta be careful, sometimes some'n one person does gives away their lie, but shows truth or don't mean shit in another person, plus maybe I'm just puttin' those clues there ta misleadja, or ta make ya _think_ I'm misleadin' ya. Thing is, it _ain't_ about _why_ I'm doin' some'n, or even _what_ I'm doin', just that I'm _doin'_ it _at all_ – that's what any fnord is all about in the end – so trust'cher gut; it's usually got shit right more'n yer heart or brain.”

Peach placed her stone, capturing the ko, and he glanced up at her.

“Lemme ask ya this; one D four, or one E four?”

Peach gave this some serious thought and replied “I understand why some prefer one E four, as it certainly allows for a rapid development and attack, but I really prefer one D four; it's more cautious, and offers more-flexible deployment.”

“Uh-huh, that and it don't hurt that ya got a better chance o' winnin' or at least drawin' wit' D four. Ya gonna go wit' it every time?”

“I guess that it would depend upon whom I were playing.”

“You got it. Moves ain't right or wrong, just right or wrong _right now_.”

“This is called ' _push hands_ ',” Sonic said as he squared himself in front of Peach.

Putting one hand behind his back, he raised the other between them, closing his eyes.

“Now you do the same, puttin' the back o' yer hand against the back o' mine.”

As she did so, he continued, “Follow my hand wherever it goes, but don't push hard. When ya feel like it, just move yours wherever you want, an' I'll follow. Feel the movements. Let our motions merge.”

She focused on the nei gong that he'd shown her earlier, breathing, leaning and twisting, loosening herself while rooting to the ground. In so doing, she noticed that while it was so very similar to their previous session of grinding arm, this had a gentler balance to it, less of a focus on her core and triceps; rather than forced resistance, this was a smooth and graceful negotiation.

While they went through this exercise, Zelda explained about pulling in chi.

“Feel the air,” she told Peach, “You can hear my hand near your ear, right?”

Peach nodded to her.

Zelda moved silently from one place to another, but Peach always kept her face toward Zelda as she and Sonic continued to weave. Whenever Zelda passed more than a few feet away, it became difficult to pin down her location, though Peach still had an idea of her general direction.

After several minutes of this, Peach felt tense, a brooding sensation washing over her.

She jerked her head around to look back, and found a dire honey badger **4** watching from beneath the bare branches of some bushes a few yards away.

Zelda was now in front of her, growling in an inhuman voice. Peach could feel a wave of brutal intention flooding from Zelda, her growl needing no translation.

_I will devour you, little thing._

The beast answered with a low growl of its own, but meeker, a mere shadow of Zelda's, as it slunk away to safer grounds.

“...an' that's The Voice, also called The Weirdin' Way. I can't do it, but maybe she'll show ya how–”

“You knew that it would be there!” Peach was shocked.

“I believed it likely. There were fresh tracks in the area.”

“But you knew, and still came here. With me,” she insisted.

“You were safe with us, Princess,” Zelda said, “and the dire honey badger was the whole point of this.”

Peach's mouth hung open, but she found herself speechless.

“You felt its presence, its attention, once it started watching you. _That_ was the purpose of this lesson.”

“...yeah, let's all head back ta camp 'n' we can do some'n a little less stressful,” Sonic said, seeking to deflect things, “I know! We'll grab a bite ta eat, an' I'll show ya' ' _sticky hands_ '. You'll like that one. 'sall about movin' yer arms around 'n' slappin' each other's attempts ta get through.”

“Think of it like a free-form gavotte,” Sonic said as they danced in broad lunges, “ 'cept every move is an automatic parry 'n' simultaneous attack... like a full-contact tanabata – an' remember that ya don't have two arms 'n' legs, ya got basically four of each, an' yer head 'n' torso're weapons too, just not really a smart choice is all. Hell, anything lyin' around is a weapon, though they can always be used against ya'.”

For the past hour, they had been moving to an unpredictable beat that Ruru tapped out against a hollow log. She had twitched her nose and wriggled her fingers before beginning, and now seemed accompanied by a small percussion section lurking someplace just out of sight, their rattles and claps providing bursts of flavor to the melodies that she managed to coax from the wood. As her sounds rang out chaotically, they never stopped moving, swaying drunkenly sometimes, lurching like snakes or tumbling like baboons, often leaping wildly or performing handstands to kick at each other, but always coming back to the ginga – a triangular stepping that gave leverage to their limbs and torque to their midriffs, offering lateral motion and rapid changes of angle. The snake and baboon movements weren't quite as stylized as those of some other animals that he'd taught Peach – and this serpentine nature in particular was definitely not the same as one that he'd specifically _called_ “snake style” before – but she chose to think of them as such at least in short-hand. She came to appreciate the ginga in learning the meia lua de compasso. It looked so obvious in a swift spin of the leg, nothing but an outside crescent kick as a distractor followed by a variation of dui dolyuh chagi... until she found herself attempting it.

Zelda and Tails had joined in as well, once Peach had begun to feel the rhythm. Sonic called these exercises capoeira, claiming that they were designed for use when chained. Whatever else they might be, she called them exhausting.

=====

As sunrise came, Sonic took Peach to the nearby pond.

“Ya said ya like ta ice skate. Got me thinkin'.”

Peach looked out over the frozen surface wistfully.

“It's beautiful, Sonic, but it's covered in snowy frosty stuff.”

Sonic just smiled.

“C'mon. I wanna show ya some'n.”

They walked out onto the ice, and he gave her a shove. Peach's leg stiffened and shot forward a hair, her other leg beating a tattoo in the air as she slid forward as well. After coming to a stop, she turned to him in puzzlement, only to find him nodding to himself.

“Good,” he said, “Ya got the right idea there. Ya didn't panic over the unexpected, ya just let'cher body react to reality.”

“...that's it?” she asked, stunned.

“Waddya want I should do here, Eliza, pile books on yer head?”

Peach's face took on the now-familiar glaze of confusion.

“Yup. 'at's it,” he replied, “Now, ya wanna skate some?”

“But the surface...”

“Look again. Notice how easy I pushed ya?” he smiled broadly as he pointed around with his chin, “That's 'cause I glassed it a few hours ago. I knew there was gonna be a hard freeze, an' I could smell the light snow comin' right after it, so... there ya go.”

Peach looked more closely at the ice. Just a patina of tiny icy flakes. Indeed, even as she watched, the morning breeze was beginning to blow the grains away to reveal an unblemished skin beneath.

“Aww, thank you!” she grinned and bounced. Practically jumping onto him to give him a tight hug and a kiss on his furry cheek, she started sliding around.

“Yeah sure, no prob'm kid, don't worry about it. Call it a mitzvah,” he said to himself as he sat on a nearby log to watch, “an' happy birthday...”

As she skated merrily, he punched a hole through the ice and began fishing.

Settled in, he checked on Peach once more.

_Quadruple Axel? Damn, that kid's good._

As Peach began to eat, Sonic asked her how it tasted.

“It seems O.K. to me, why?”

“Well,” Sonic glanced at her bowl, “just wonderin' if ya like hemlock.”

Peach looked down to see a thin green sprig in her soup. She looked back up to Sonic in a panic.

“Chill, man. I'm fuckin' wit'cha. Kinda,” he said, his face still holding a serious set, “That's just wild carrot. Same family, but harmless unless ya choke on it – but it coulda' been legit. Don't matter if it got there intentionally or not, ya'd be just as dead. Check everything before ya do anything. Look it over, sniff it, poke it wit' a stick.”

Peach looked uncomfortable, but digested this as she inspected the rest of her food.

They broke camp late that morning and arrived in a village before dusk. The buildings were generally two and three story half-timber Tudor structures, all with sharply sloped rooves and thick double walls. They found a large inn across the village green.

“ _The Three Lazy Weasels?_ ” Peach asked, “First _The Dancing Badgers_ , and now this. I don't get it.”

“It's international law, y'know?” Sonic quipped, “All inns, taverns, boardin' houses, 'n' so forth shall heretofore an' in perpetuity be named in humorous an' animal-related manner. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.”

“You know, there are times when I don't understand half of what you say.”

He chuckled at that. “That's a'ight, could be worse. You coulda said ' _I don't know half o' you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half o' you half as well as you deserve_ '.”

“Case... in... point,” she replied.

Zelda leaned over and interjected “I don't get half of the shite from his mouth, I just listen to the tone of his voice. It's easier if you just nod and smile.”

Tethering Epona, they headed for the entrance.

“A wet tabard contest?” Zelda grinned as they entered the inn, “Nice. Now _that_ I can really go for...”

A band was playing on the stage, _Dodongos Ate My Baby_ , the music filtering out through the door.

“ _...if I had_  
_those golden dreams_  
_of my yesterdays,_  
_I would wrap you_  
_in the heaven_  
_'til I'm dyin'_  
_on the way...._ ”

One of the wet tabard contestants came by after the show, having changed into dry clothing.

Her name was Elsa, and she was one of the waitresses there, but it was one of her nights off. She dreamed of going on adventures, but for now simply enjoyed hearing adventurers' tales and studying any techniques that they suggested.

Zelda bought the party jägerschnitzel and preheated pitchers of hot glühwein. The glühwein kept flowing, and Peach sat in Zelda's lap through most of the evening – ostensibly to make room for the contestant – sharing Zelda's mugs and plates.

“Now, take this spaghetti, f'rinstance,” Sonic told Peach, “it's al ragù alla bolognese, right? Thing is, ya'd normally do that with tagliatelle, or at least fettucine, though fer fettucine I'd suggest al triplo burro. Spaghetti's fine, y'know – it's just... 'snot tradition, capisce? But hey, 'least they took it out right on time fer a perfect al dente – boiled it nine 'n' a half ta ten minutes, no more, no less. Now, finish up before the linguine gets here, 'cause I still wanna go over that pesto wit'cha. Fer the moment, talk ta me about this sauce – what's it tellin' ya?”

“There's Asiago in the sauce base, with butter added right before serving, giving it a slightly sweet and creamy edge. They sautéed the garlic just about right, but messed up by throwing in the oregano too late, and straight into the sauce rather than the oil base, so it's little flecks of dry-green flavor,” Peach licked her palate a few times, drawing air across her tongue and slowly up and down the back of her sinus cavity, “there's also a sweet sausage, but another one as well... slightly spiced, flavored with... umm, fennel and anise?”

“Yeah! Ya fuckin' nailed it,” he replied with an encouraging grin, “Now tell me about the meats in the sauce – not the sausages, the meaty bits _in_ the sauce. What'd they use, an' how'd they prep 'em?”

The band took a break, and things were quiet for a while. When they came back, they swapped out their instruments. They were the same types of instruments as before, but detuned to A 415.

They began to play. The song wasn't quite discordant; oddly familiar, but off somehow. The melody was haunting, indexed to D minor, a slow 120 BPM. Dark, electrifying, tense.

“ _Another head hangs lowly, child is slowly taken,_  
_and the violence caused such silence, who are we mistaken?_ ”

Zelda stopped moving, her body rigid.

_Breathe. Focus. Drop D. Twelve string bass. One set normal, another overdamped, the last almost underdamped. Vibrato fingerings. Plucking tremolo by the bridge._

“ _But, you see, it's not me, it's not my family_  
_in your head, in your head, they are fighting..._ ”

Zelda lurched up, squeezing her eyes shut, her skin ashen, her movements wobbly.

“I need air,” she announced abruptly, her voice harshly aspirated and constricted.

Elsa watched her walk toward the door.

“You girlfriend. She is O.K.?” she asked Peach.

“Yes. I think so. Maybe. I don't know,” Peach replied, “And she's not my girlfriend, we're... just... friends,” her voice dropping a little woefully as she finished, her head still turned in the direction that Zelda had gone.

Elsa glanced at the door, then over to Sonic. Throwing a hand into the air as he raised his eyebrow, he rolled his eyes in exasperation, shrugging as he blew out his cheeks and shook his head wearily. She winced in sympathy and turned back to Peach.

“She see you all night safe where you go, where you are, what you do. Bring you foods, drinks. Look to see you happy; have fun. Maybe I am wrong. No girlfriend. She is fine, hmm?”

Peach glanced at her, then back to the door, biting her lip as her expression grew more concerned.

“I'm just going to make sure that she's O.K., guys. I'll be right back.”

Outside. Peach followed the scent of cinnamon mixed with burning tea leaves and chocolate. Zelda and one of her cigars.

She found Zelda in a darkened area of the inn's porch, the cold air settling her somewhat. The temperature was dropping some, but the air felt wetter, too.

“Is there anything that I can help with? I'm here, if you need me.”

A whimper escaped Zelda's throat as she fell to a crouch, hugging herself, her cigar forgotten. A moment later, she vomited.

Peach began to crouch next to her, reaching out to hold Zelda's hair before realizing that there were people nearby. She looked up. It was two of the brigands from the road.

“You friend no big, ha? Maybe we help have fun?” one of them laughed as they approached.

Peach stepped in front of Zelda, directly into the face of the one who had just spoken.

“I will fucking dismember you!” she snarled, bouncing lightly on her back leg, front leg poised just above the floorboards, arms loose and hands half-open at different levels. Her position spoke in no way of defense; she was on the offense and awaiting only their move to commit them to folly.

The brigands paused, doubt crossing their faces. They turned partly away, enough to ensure their safe egress, but still keeping a cautious eye on Peach as they retreated carefully.

“I could've handled them.”

“I know. I've seen. But you don't have to. I'm here now.”

This seemed to stab deep into Zelda. Her face froze in a contortion of pain as she stared into Peach's eyes.

“Faeck! Not again...” Zelda's head turned away quickly, a jerking motion.

The floor seemed to wobble unevenly beneath her as she retreated into the recesses of her mind, the past, no longer seeing the world around her. _Falling. Always falling, the universe shrinking to a dark and narrow tunnel, crying out, nobody ever hearing her screams, her pleas for help. Losing herself, outside looking in. Now_ _Pérdida_ _is screaming at her about being useless, belittling her, insulting her, manipulating her, laughing... leaving. The explosion, her family gone, Warbotdorf stepping in. She's running, her world gone. Then there's Sonic._ A song played in her mind. The same song as ever. Only the chorus ever came, and it never stopped.

_Thunder only happens when it's rainin',_  
_players only love you when they're playin'._  
_Say women, they will come and they will go._  
_When the rain washes you clean, you'll know,_  
_you'll know,_  
_you will know,_  
_you'll know..._

Fishing through Zelda's tunic, Peach retrieved her cigar case.

“Well, now I know where she keeps these things...” she said quietly, her cheeks burning red.

Lighting one for Zelda presented little challenge, having watched her do so so many times before. She took pains to suck the cigar as if it were a straw, pulling on it several times to ensure that the ember remained well lit.

_It smells sort of like fresh cut grass, but tastes like a thick and sweetened incense smoke..._

As she closed the cigar case, it emitted a soft sighing sound, and Sonic collapsed in the nearby shadows.

Tails looked at the nearly catatonic Zelda, then inspected Sonic.

Finally he turned to Peach.

“I guess we'll call it a night, huh?”

Peach's eyes were wide as she kept her face firmly averted to tuck away the case back into its nestling place, her breathing tense for the moment that it took.

Peach and Tails managed to help Zelda stumble upstairs, at turns shying away from any physical contact as if being touched were itself an attack and then huddling close for comfort, disoriented and unresponsive, as they carried Sonic between them. At least they weren't worried for him, since Zelda had pulled out enough to say that it was only a knock-out drug from a concealed dart gun in her cigar case. Her concern had clamped down hard on her defenses to let that much out, but then crumbled again as she fell back into the darkness within.

After having gotten Zelda and Sonic into their beds, Peach asked Tails to get some food, handing him a list that she'd written hastily. Upon his return, he handed her a warm wineskin as well.

Peach looked at him, asking a silent question.

“It's something that I mixed together for her,” he said, “Make sure she drinks it all, but just small sips every so often.”

Peach opened it and took a sniff, “Smells interesting. Not bad – not good, but... not bad. What's in it?”

Tails screwed up his face in concentration, trying to explain it concisely, “Willow bark and leaf for her head, birch bark for her head and stomach, some ginger for flavor and her stomach, ground chalk for her stomach, a little charcoal to help her gut with the birch's side-effects, ahh... a bit of wintergreen to add to the birch's flavor, and some cornstarch to bind it all,” he rattled off, “Oh, and some chamomile for her nerves, and valerian and lavender to help her sleep, or probably just take the edge off a bit, and a bunch of thyme to help with her nightmares tonight. There's also a spoon or two of butter in it, mixed with some essential oils that I extract from her cigars; pretty much the key ingredient, really. I sweetened it a little with a simple syrup of açaí.

“Also,” he added, reaching into his pouch, “if you can get her to eat a few pats of this butter on some crackers, it would _really_ help her a lot. It has some more of those essential oils in it. A lot more.”

“Oh,” Peach looked slightly dazed, unused to others ever giving detailed extemporaneous speeches and hence caught off guard, “when did you have time for all of this?”

“It's what I pick while we're on the trail,” he said, “You know all of those leaves and berries and stuff that I stop for?”

She nodded.

“That's what I'm doing, when I do that. I collect all kinds of stuff like that in my pack for times like this, or broken bones, or sickness, and I usually keep at least a couple of premixed packets ready for when Zelda has one of her really bad spells.”

“You and I need to talk about all of this – in depth. I need to know a lot more, learn whatever I can from you, just in case, but not right now. Go check on Sonic and get some rest while I tend to Zelda, O.K.?” she asked him.

Tails smiled and nodded, then scurried off.

By this time, Zelda had lit a cigar out of habit, though she wasn't dragging on it much.

“Zelda?” Peach approached her slowly, cautiously, “Are you feeling any better?”

Zelda nodded listlessly, though there was more life in her now than there had been for the past twenty minutes. Her breathing was calm and steady, at least, and her eyes had lost some of their haunted look.

“Come here,” Peach said gently, pulling Zelda toward her as she sat down.

Zelda offered no resistance, resting her face against Peach's breast without any argument, even closing the gap a little of her own accord. This worried Peach more than anything else so far.

She stroked Zelda's hair and racked her brain for something that might help.

“Would you like me to tell you a story?” she asked.

She couldn't be certain, but it seemed that Zelda shrugged. It wasn't much at all, the barest of motions.

“Anything in particular?” she prompted, hoping for more of a response.

“Zombies?” Zelda mumbled quietly, almost a whisper.

“Zombies. Are you sure?” Peach asked.

Zelda moved her head slightly and said “Simple. Easy. Honest. Always know the bad guy. Kill, run, hide, repeat.”

Peach considered this for a moment.

“How about if I tell you the tale of Bearskin? If you're still interested after that, then I'll tell all the zombie stories you want, O.K.?”

Zelda didn't offer an opinion, so Peach started in on the assumption that it wouldn't hurt, and if Zelda objected, then that would still be progress.

As she reached to close the lamp's airflow, Zelda touched her arm.

“Leave it on?” she asked in a small voice, almost inaudible.

Peach smiled and nodded, hurting for Zelda.

Passing the butter, crackers, and wineskin to Zelda, Peach began her yarn.

She told the tale of Bearskin, a soldier returned home from the wars, penniless, aimless, alone. How one evening as he sat at his campfire, a bear had appeared.

He'd killed the bear, and while he skinned it, a demon made its presence known. The demon offered him a deal: he must wear the bearskin for a year and a day, never removing it, never washing, telling nobody his story or of this deal, always moving on after no more than a night's rest; he would always have adequate funds within a pouch of the skin, but only sufficient to survive at a bare minimum. After this period had elapsed, had he followed the terms of this agreement throughout, then the demon would see him again and restore his good fortunes forevermore. If he were to misstep even once in that time though, then his soul would be forfeited immediately.

Having no other options that he could foresee, the soldier struck the demon's bargain.

For months, the soldier traveled, seeking shelter in barns and caves. At first, he still sought company, but soon was shunned and reviled.

One day, as he trudged wearily along a road, a carriage trundled along and stopped just ahead of him. The man driving it told the soldier to climb aboard, as he looked as if he could truly use the rest.

Too exhausted to argue, the soldier complied.

They soon arrived at the man's home, a large estate with a well kept manor.

As the carriage approached, the man's daughters saw him through a window. The eldest two buzzed about what new gifts their father would bring them. The youngest of the three, Candida, waited only to greet him home again.

As the carriage arrived, the elder two mistook Bearskin for a rug, and were in a frenzy when he moved.

They would have nothing to do with him, attending only what trinkets and baubles their father had to offer them.

Candida kissed her father and tended to their guest's needs. As he ate, they talked. He told her of the world, the people and places that were out there. They discussed art and philosophy and the sciences. As evening drew to a close, he took his leave to seek out the stables. Resting her hand on his, she showed him to a room in the manor, that he might rest well instead.

Morning came, and with it he bade the father and youngest daughter adieu. Of the elder daughters there was no sign. Candida asked that he return to her when his travels were over, and to this he agreed.

The remaining time flew by for him unnoticed, his heart filled with joy and promise, and when the time came due, a year and a day to the very minute, the demon showed himself once more. He was enraged, knowing full well that the soldier had indeed not infringed the terms of their agreement in the slightest.

Stripping the soldier of the skin and washing his lesions, the demon then bequeathed the soldier with an aura that ensured success in all future endeavors and parted ways, never to see him again.

When the soldier finally made his way back to the businessman's home, it was in a fine coach and four, well-armed outriders maintaining a relaxed presence. Even they and the liveried servants riding within the side-booths were cast in great style and elegance.

His old friend was outside to meet him, as were the elder daughters. Candida remained within, staring into the horizon, still awaiting his return.

As they dined, the elder daughters vied in every way for his attention, choosing the choicest morsels to feed him, dropping the boldest of hints as to their willingness to please him in every way, whatever such requests might entail. Throughout the evening, they sought to outdo each other for this most handsome gentleman's interest. Candida was polite to him, but distant, mooning over her love, gone these many months.

The next day passed likewise, as did the following week, and indeed the entire month.

When finally he revealed himself, spurning the elder two for Candida, the businessman was beside himself with joy, knowing that at last his youngest would smile once more.

On the day of their wedding, the eldest sister hanged herself in spite, the other having hurled herself into the river, each seeking to cast a pall over the union. The demon showed himself one last time, collecting their two souls in trade for the one that he had lost, but Bearskin and Candida knew neither want nor strife for the rest of their days.

As Peach finished her tale, Tails was crying and Zelda had roused herself to listen, both of them enthralled by Peach's words and soft voice.

“Alright guys, I think that it's time for a break,” she said, eyeing each of them, “Tails, it's getting pretty late. Shouldn't you be asleep?”

“I'm fine,” he said, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

“Well, we'll eat something for now. If you're still awake after that, then I suppose that you might as well listen in, since I'll be telling Zelda about zombies at that point.”

As Zelda came out of her reverie, she looked at Peach as if through new eyes.

“Ye've the bardic knack about ye, lass, and that's for cert.”

Zelda looked at the food that Peach had had Tails bring up earlier. Peach had stored the various bits separately – the cold goods in shelves lining the thick walls at the small window, the hot goods in tins affixed to the heating duct that spiraled upward along the walls, and the bread on the table.

“What is all of this?” she asked, “Why are you being nice to me? What do you want?”

“Warm chicken noodle soup, hot gravy and cold pork roast and beef brisket for the brown rye, sweetened butter for the meats, salted margarine for the combined lingonberry-loganberry jam, crackers for the soup, a gallon of cold milk that you'll probably finish before morning, and pickled eggs. There's also a bunch of cold chicken and mayonnaise for sandwich snacks.”

“...what... _why_?”

“Well... I didn't know what else to do and I know how much you love food, and you need to eat, and I know what your comfort foods are and how you like them, and a little bit about your favorite foods.”

“Fucking stalker,” Zelda said, amiably disgruntled.

“Damatte tabero, baka hentai _tsundere_!” Ruru chastised from her perch on the lamp.

Zelda threw up her middle finger in response, with her index half-extended in an oddly mixed gesture.

Peach watched their exchange with exasperation.

“Eat now. Angry later,” she told Zelda, shaking her forefinger.

As Zelda dug into the soup, she looked up in consternation.

“This is full of ham and split peas! Is this supposed to be soup or a pot pie?!?”

“It's better for you that way, and more filling. My idea. Now eat.”

“Are those... _boiled peanuts_?” she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

“Eat,” Peach told her firmly, raising her brow and crossing her arms.

Zelda grumbled and took a bite. Her look transformed to curiosity, then enthusiasm.

“You're weird. This stuff is weird. And the really weird part is that this stuff is good. Where the hell did it come from?”

“I asked Tails to gather it all together before we settled in – and before you freak out again, it has a bunch of clams, mushrooms, and vegetables in it, too. I already knew what the kitchen had to offer this evening, so I had these soups mixed because it seemed as if you might need something like it. The other stuff I know you like, so he got everything else from the attached general store. He was even able to get the adobo and concentrated soy sauce for your roasts; unfortunately, they didn't have any wasabi, curry powder, or hot sauce of any kind, much less your Cholula or Pete stuff in particular.”

“ _Pickled_ eggs?” Zelda asked, making it sound more like a counterargument than anything else.

Peach shrugged, “They'll travel better than omelettes.”

Zelda blinked. _She has a point._

Then she noticed the hazelnuts by the window.

Peach hadn't mentioned those.

After they had all eaten – all but Sonic – Tails curled up on his bed next to Sonic, and Zelda lay down on her stomach and lit another cigar. Ruru simply crossed her legs beneath herself and waited. They all looked at Peach expectantly, their eyes wide open and hungry.

Peach rolled her eyes, turned down the lamp to set the mood, and settled into the bed with Zelda, Zelda laying her head in Peach's lap. Absentmindedly, she licked the tip of her thumb and wiped some stray crumbs and gravy from the corners of Zelda's mouth and chin as Tails came over and joined them.

“Thank you, mommy,” Zelda said with mild sarcasm. She hadn't actually minded it. To the contrary, she found it kind of nice of Peach to have paid attention and taken the effort to do that. The food also really helped a lot, and she was looking forward to the zombie bit coming up...

Peach continued the story from shortly after the point where she had left off. It was a dark and stormy night, with Bearskin and Candida now holding a masquerade ball at the manor as a horde of zombies made its way through the night woods toward the unsuspecting party guests and the young housecarl who drew Bakeneko and Nekomata.

As she let the tale unfold, she looked down to find Zelda and Tails already entranced by the goings on, their gazes miles away as the goings-on painted themselves across their minds' eyes. Even Ruru was on the edge of her seat, listening.

_This is going to be a long night..._

Morning came slowly and late, thin blue-golden light creeping into the gray through thick cloud cover.

Huge puffed dust-bunnies of snow drifted slowly downward. The ground was blanketed two feet deep with soft snow, a thin crust having formed just before dawn. It was a warm-cold outside. Dry, and without a breath of wind. The crust-ice tacky to the touch. Smoke hung without vigor in the still air above the buildings of the silent village, seemingly in hope of returning to bed. What few sounds there were carried softly, as if through a layer of cotton.

Sonic awoke as the room brightened gradually, blurrily making out the cuckoo clock as reading something-on-the-left thirty. Peach paused in her recounting of the details of the alien tripod-machines with deadly heat rays and strange half-living mantis ships, subterranean prehistoric civilizations, mutants from the future, and The Nameless Necromancer, to glance over to him, both Tails and Zelda waiting to hear more.

She looked happy. Exhausted, but happy. More than that though, they all looked happy. As she sat there, they were cuddled up against her, heads in her lap to either side, her arms reaching down to rest on their shoulders as she spun her yarn. Ruru was leaned back against the warmth of the lamp, nibbling away at something unidentifiable. There was a mess of snack remnants strewn about nearby, evidencing several late raids of their stores like tidal marks.

It took a moment for Ruru to break from her reverie and realize that the story telling had paused.

Looking over to Sonic, she waved to him and called out “Ohayō!”

He took in the scene, cocked a brow, and promptly didn't say a word.

_Huh; yeah, maybe we really are a family._

It was clear that nobody was going to slog anywhere that day, and they were all exhausted in any event. They decided to stay at least until the weather shifted favorably.

“Ya wanna know some'n good, P?” Sonic asked over breakfast, “Lemme tell ya a story I got from my grampa. Prob'ly the best advice I ever got, 'side from maybe the importance o' flossin'.

“One day, there's this bird freezin' ta death in the road, an' a peasant sticks it in a fresh pile o' cowshit. Soon, the bird's warm and stuffin' its face on undigested seeds 'n' singin' its heart out, when another peasant picks it up 'n' brings it home. Next thing ya know, _wham_ , motherfucker's in the stew pot fer dinner. Moral o' the story is, not everyone who gets y'inta shit is out ta get'cha, not everyone who gets y'outta shit is yer friend – and when yer fat, dumb, 'n' happy, keep yer trap shut... just not _too_ quiet, or someone'll wonder.”

He gave her a broad smile with a quick wink as he basked in the warmth of the room with a full belly.

“Last night – you guys came out of nowhere. How did you do that?”

“You'll learn, believe me. We can work on that next, if ya want. It's a mix o' hidin' in plain sight 'n' blendin' inta the shadows, an' kinda pullin' yer chi in. No chi, no noise or sign o' life – even Ruru can do it, like ya prob'ly noticed.”

As lunchtime reared its head, Sonic wheeled in a cart.

“I talked wit' the kitchen, got us some stuff. Turns out that scumbag in the woods was a real piece o' fuckin' work. We did everyone a favor, and word's out on it. I don't think we're gonna have any prob'ms here, an' I'm plannin' ta score us a bunch o' braunschweiger 'n' aspic before we leave – liverwurst with anchovies thrown in – an' I'm lookin' forward ta how that comes out. I tried a sample an' yer gonna flip, I shit'chu not.”

Laid out on the cart was a spread for salad, fondue, a huge tureen of clam chowder, a tray of liver sautéed in a red wine base, and a baker's dozen of large baked potatoes with numerous containers of toppings. He nattered on as everyone joined in to help him set the table.

“Potatoes, onions, cheese: these basics'll get'cha by when shit hits the fan. The chowder's freshwater, from the lake, but that'll work – the kitchen made it, but I had 'em throw in some andouille an' filé. Now, the fondue should be good on the heat ducts, accordin' ta the staff, but we'll see. I'm'a introduce ya ta some Balsamic vinaigrette fer some good salad, an' tomatoes Caprese done right – 'cept that it'll hafta be rock salt 'steada sea salt. Turns out they got a greenhouse on the south wall o' the joint; most places here do.

“Now, Caprese ain't a freakin' salad, it's a side dish. Y'can make do just fine wit' provolone, but we lucked out in that they had mozzarella, an' my happy ass snagged us the last of it, so we're good ta go. Plus, they don't use nut'n' but the good olive oil here – first cold pressed extra virgin – so we're really in luck.

“The potatoes I did myself, all soaked in garlic butter 'n' coarse salt, an' roasted up nice 'n' crisp-like, but they're fer later. Right now, dig inta the liver while it's still nice 'n' moist, or don't gimme any shit if you wait 'til it's dried out like the leathery garbage most people make – though I got us some o' the fried shit, too, fer samwiches later. Middle o' winter, man. We can all of us use the vitamins.

“That, plus they said they ain't had much luck lately wit' game. Like the deer 'n' everything went an' headed south fer the winter – back in summer. Guess we got a bad one comin' up.”

As it turned out, they stayed at the inn for a week and made a holiday of it, celebrating Peach's nineteenth birthday, though the first day was mostly laid back and full of food and naps after a long night of zombie stories – and each evening ended with the others entreating her for more stories, with which she happily obliged them. Escaping a recent upsurge of the undead and harried by Lizardmen, Peach's characters had sought refuge in a keep on the borderlands; Candida now faced a minor Demon holding her belovèd ransom to her behavior as she told tales within tales to turn his attention from her use as a vessel to produce a Cambion for the reunification of all evils. They were freed from the Demon's clutches by a Kodama who was moved by Candida's plight. The Kodama had strayed from its nearby tree to listen to her stories and seen how engaged the Demon had become with them. To leave would surely mean her end, and so the Kodama had entered into a contest with her, telling fables of the woodland creatures, each fable leading to the next. So impressed with these was the Demon that he dismissed both Candida and her love to better attend the intricacies that the Kodama spun.

As Peach bathed that evening, Zelda gathered the others in order to sort out their plans for the next day. Not long after they'd finished this, Peach returned to their room. _Short too-small terrycloth robe, hair in a towel, and she smells of strawberry shampoo, baby powder, and coconut oil. And honeysuckle. All smiles and perkiness. I swear she does this intentionally, just to torment me._ Peach picked up a small pale-carnation pink bottle and sat at the edge of the bed, a clean musk permeating the area. _Oh great, now she's gonna do her nails right next to me – wearing just that? Nayru, give me strength..._

“Entschuldige – you say five _pounds_ bacon, ja? Is nicht five _orders_?” the waitress was clearly startled by their request.

“Damn' skippy! Our girl here, it's her birthday, an' she likes her bacon, even fer dinner. Hell, we all do, so we're makin' a bacon-party of it,” Sonic double-clicked his tongue as he beamed a smiling reply.

Zelda rolled her eyes at him, “ ' _Makin' bacon?_ ' You seriously did not just say that, did you?”

“What?” Sonic asked innocently, “She's cute. Like you _wouldn't_?”

Lurga. Drow-black skin, auburn hair, Dwarven nose and stature, Human ears and proportions, perky smile, and a natural salty-spicy-granite body-scent; none of them was quite certain of what she was, but Sonic was right, she was cute.

Zelda's face tried to respond in three different ways at once, and failed epically at each.

Peach giggled at this. Lurga smiled, partly professionally, partly provocatively, her hip brushing Zelda's thigh slowly as she turned to put in their orders.

Covering as well as she could, Zelda caught the waitress before she left, adding “Und eine große Kirsch Cola,” pointing back and forth to herself and Peach, “mit _zwei_ Strohhalme.”

Picking up on the implication, the waitress concealed her disappointment with a nod, her eye lingering upon Peach in envy of Zelda's favor.

=====

“She wouldn't have lasted twenty seconds,” Zelda snorted, “thirty maybe, if they were cautious.”

“Yeah,” Sonic agreed, “but she didn't hesitate at all. She jumped right on in ta save yer ass, an' that's _all_ that was on 'er mind. She acted on gut instinct, an' wit' some _serious_ ferocity there. The girl's got real fuckin' chutzpah.”

Zelda looked around suddenly, a bristling protective menace to her air, Peach having disappeared around a bookcase.

For a while now, she'd been noticing whenever Peach wasn't around, and Sonic smiled to himself, having noticed her noticing. She was getting used to having her there.

From halfway along the front window came a song from the jukebox-device. He didn't pay it much attention at first, but then the lyrics began to filter in.

“ _...'cause I am the man who will fight for your honor,_  
_I'll be the hero that you're dreamin' of,_  
_gonna live forever,_  
_knowin' together,_  
_that we did it all for the glory of love..._ ”

_Hell of a coinci...dence – oh, hell no._

He glanced casually in that direction and found Ruru standing around studying the wall calendars innocently. _Very_ innocently.

Peach was browsing books, too engrossed in their stock to pay any heed to the conversation, and Zelda hadn't yet picked up on the music.

In the end, Peach left with a prize that left her grinning with anticipation. A thick and densely packed three-volume work on the history and philosophy of mathematics. Tails got a few thin textbooks on physics, chemistry, and the various magics (to include alchemy).

The rest of the day went by in a blur for Peach. All you can eat pizza, a greenhouse of exotic plants (she was especially fond of the great variety of carnivorous plants on display), an afternoon showing of _The Phantom of the Opera_ at the small community playhouse left her crying (Sonic and Tails plowing through any number of boxed sweets and salted snacks, Ruru crying a bit too, pretending not to, and asking Peach “Daijōbu desu ka? _Daijōb'–?_ ”), then dinner at the inn (kielbasa and garlic noodles, grape nut bread, pumpkin soup, ham-swiss-mushroom casserole – and another large order of bacon).

As orders were placed, Ruru waited; as other tables were served, Ruru waited; when their own food finally arrived, Ruru waited no more, exclaiming “ _Ora, niku!_ Itadakimasu!” immediately, as if issuing challenge to her plate, and descending upon her dinner with unrivaled zeal.

Once again, Peach sat in Zelda's lap. Zelda, for her part, kept her arm around Peach's waist, sometimes sending chills through Peach's spine by placing her hand to the small of her back, heat coursing through Peach as Zelda placed her other hand on her thigh with the occasional squeeze. Every so often, the hand at Peach's back slid down her waist to rest on her cheek and give it an extended palping. Every time that this happened, Peach's face became inflamed, at which Zelda simply grinned and carried on as if nothing were amiss.

When the cherry cheesecake was brought out, Peach lost it again, crying with happiness, and the presents only made that worse.

“When did you guys find the time for all of this?” Peach asked, smiling as she reached for another napkin, the last of her tears trickling down her cheeks.

“It's your birthday, Princess, or it was a few days ago,” Zelda said softly, amending this with a gruff “Besides, I owe you for the other night, and I'll not be beholden to anyone.”

It didn't escape Peach's notice – or Sonic's – that the way that Zelda had said _Princess_ held its own softness this time. Something had shifted. No longer a questionable epithet, it was more personal, more of an actual name now.

“Congrats, man,” Sonic told her, “yer officially our FNG.”

“F-N-G?” Peach asked.

He smiled and gave her a wink, “Fuckin' New Guy,” then gave her a cheerful nod.

Tails bounced in his seat, “C'mon! Open your presents!”

Peach smiled and reached for his first. It was two pairs of nunchaku. They were made of a lightweight metal, with a mottled pattern of bland colors across their anodized surfaces, even along the chains in the middle. With radial ribbing, octagonal facing, and tiny studding at the ribs' corners, they presented a pleasing texture to both the eye and the hand.

“I made sure that they had universal joints and spinners, and if you push and twist any of the chain heads, it'll pop out and reel out a garrote. They even have an automatic rewind! I couldn't find any karatand though, so those'll have to wait until I can make you some, since it'll be a while before we're near anyplace big enough to buy them. I'm sorry.”

“Ohh – thank you, Tails! Don't worry about it, I'm just happy that you're here!” Peach bubbled as she kissed his cheek and scratched him behind his ear, clearly happy with his murderous choice. Tails was all smiles at this, both of his tails twitching in satisfaction.

Sonic pushed his own package toward her. It was small, but he had a look that said that she'd like it. He wasn't wrong. A matched pair of sooted butterfly knives.

“I think they're a half-gram heavy at the back-end, but we can fix that. Once ya get a handle on 'em all, you'll find the knives 'n' 'chucks move a lot alike. Same basic practice motions, similar tricks.”

Peach didn't know what to say. She just smiled, her chin and lower lip trembling.

“Oi, minna, umai desu, ne?” Ruru gushed, her voice piping up from behind a slowly disappearing mound of bacon, a plate of reddish-golden-brown curry glop over a sizzling pork-and-beef 'burger with sautéed onions and a side of ketchup-slathered omurice with cheese (the pair of eggs having been steamed for only thirty seconds and now quivering gently) still awaiting her appetite.

“Now the Ruru!”

Sonic glanced at her plate, “Y'know, I still think ya shoulda gone with the demi-glace au boeuf an' a drizzle o' Mornay...”

Ruru made a face at him and watched Peach unwrap her present.

It was a makeup kit almost the size of a fishing tackle box, before unrolling it. It could be folded and furled and tied around the waist or elsewhere by apron strings, with a good number of fascinating items and materials within that she'd never seen before.

“It is for costumes and it is for acting! That is Ruru's purezento,” Ruru proclaimed, “You can now become anyone in a flash. You will blend in or stand out, however you please. There is cork and matches, glue, and many other strange extra things in there! Oh, and there is also a Leatherman!”

“Ahh, and that's why you were covered in talc earlier?”

“Ruru has no idea what you are talking about. The Ruru has never been covered in talc! Baka purinsesu!”

Peach could hardly give the diminutive Kaijin a proper hug, but she did her best.

“Hmm, mo futatsu oppai, o kudasai? Toriaezu, kore kudasai, hina!” Ruru giggled up at her happily.

Peach wasn't entirely certain of what Ruru had just said, but she had a sneaking suspicion that it was embarrassing. This wasn't helped in the least by the direction of Ruru's gaze.

Reaching Zelda at last, she opened yet another small package. A pair of peened brass knuckles, with interior suede padding.

“Happy birthday, Princess,” Zelda told her, and kissed her cheek.

Peach melted.

“And this one is from all of us,” Zelda said as she pulled away.

There was a cord on the table in front of Peach. A very supple light gray nylon with notes of daffodil and cyan, about four feet long, small bulges every few inches, with decorative weights at the ends and just the right heft to it. It was beautiful.

“It's a Monkey Fist. You can wear it as a belt, and always have a weapon to hand.”

“Wait! Where am I going to put all of these?” Peach asked in sudden concern.

“Awready taken care of,” Sonic said, “Tails sewed a few new spaces inta yer outfit earlier. Y'good ta go.”

Ruru smiled broadly at that, holding up a particularly large piece of bacon and proclaiming “ _Nakama!_ ” nodding her head firmly, as if having settled the matter.

“One last thing,” Zelda said, holding up a tube.

Peach wasn't sure what she was looking at. It resembled a finger-cuff of rather large girth, with a trumpet flare at one end and a pair of dangling antennae at the other.

“ _Don't_ put your fingers into it. It's a device that stabs barbed nettles into anything within it, and the nettles inject gympie-gympie toxin. I had some extra on me and wasn't putting it to any other use, so... In any event, it's not lethal – at least not directly so, since it wouldn't surprise me if it led directly to suicide soon thereafter. Call it a special surprise present for anyone who tries to get too friendly with you,” Zelda's smile was cold, with an almost evil relish to it.

Sonic's face was a rictus of horrified, empathetic pain.

“How do I use it?” Peach asked.

“No worries. It expands as needed, recocks automatically, and carries ten doses of toxin before needing a refill, twenty for the nettles. I'll show you how to put it in later.”

“...into what?”

Before Zelda could reply, the singer on the stage began an announcement. It was _Dodongos Ate My Baby_ again. They had been setting up for the evening, but were apparently ready to begin the gig.

“Attention all, please. Today we learn new song, for birthday girl. Please, all quiet for song.”

Peach's eyes widened and her jaw went slack as the room darkened and several soft lights centered on her, the band launching into a fast-pounding drumbeat and screaming riffs.

“ _Gabba-gabba, we accept you, we accept you, one of us;_  
_gabba-gabba, we accept you, we accept you, one of us..._ ”

Peach's tears were back in force throughout the song.

“So, I don't get it. Are they dating or not, already?” Tails asked in pent up exasperation.

Sonic squinted and sighed. “Ehh... Yeah. No. 'scomplicated,” he bobbed his head around and wiggled his fingers in a yes-no fashion, “let's just say yeah- _sorta_. 'sclose enough. They're... negotiatin' things.”

“I wish they'd just figure it out already and get it over with. They like each other, right? So what's the big deal?”

Sonic grinned wryly and tousled Tails's hair, “Yeah... nobody's figured that one out yet, dude. Sixty-four thousan' dolla' question.”

 _Please_ , he thought, _just get outta yer own fuckin' way fer once, Z , an' look at what's right in front o' yer face._

Peach excused herself to the restroom with Ruru just before a bottle of mead arrived at Zelda's seat. Before she could wave it away as not her order, the waitress pointed to a lady at the corner of the bar who inclined her head slightly and raised her drink toward her. She was stunning.

With Sonic and Tails locked in seemingly impossible conversation over the background noise, Zelda declined, shooing the girl away before they might notice.

Through the corner of his eye, Sonic watched all of this, as well as the way that her eyes slid hesitantly toward the bathroom doors as if waiting before then turning inward as she slouched into herself.

“Since when do furballs give a shit about beds?” Zelda demanded in frustration.

“Since there's a roof 'n' a decent fuckin' mattress worth a shit, fer a change. Now shush, people are tryna' sleep here,” Sonic replied.

“Yeah? Really? So I'd faecking noticed. I still need someplace to sleep that isn't the floor,” she pointed out.

“Count the beds; ya got room. Sleepin' Beauty over there don't take up much space.”

Zelda hesitated, sighed, and got under the covers next to Peach. As she did, Tails opened an eye and Sonic just smiled and wiggled his eyebrows, then gave him a wink. Tails smiled happily with a sharp nod, and curled back up to sleep.

Zelda's cover-rearranging roused Peach just enough to roll over, lift her head, and sleep-murmur “Mmm, hey there gorgeous.”

She smiled as she collapsed back to the pillow and kissed Zelda's shoulder, only to nuzzle into the crook of Zelda's neck. Throwing her arm over Zelda's chest to hold her breast, she resumed the sleep-cooing that she made whenever they were together.

Zelda just lay there, staring into the darkness, unsure of what to do about it all.

=====

The next day, Sonic had a cauldron of grape nut porridge ready before anyone else had awoken.

“Made it wit' sweetened condensed milk an' a bit o' light brown sugar for flavor. I also threw in some raisins 'n' blueberries, an' banana slices. 'sgood fer a nasty, cold, wet, blustery day like today's shapin' up ta be.”

He and Tails gave the sauna a pass as the girls headed out.

“Look Princess, I'm just saying that you should be betrothed to someone by now, maybe giving him big fat babies already.”

“You're not, and you're half again my age.”

“Yeah... I'm into chicks, honey,” Zelda shrugged, “not dicks.”

 _Please don't give me the puppy-dog eyes. Oh, crap. No, no, no,_ Zelda hoped, _Oh la... putain de merde! She's giving me the puppy-dog eyes._

 _I'm into you_ , Peach thought dolorously, _Doesn't that mean anything?_

“Well, O.K., but I mean... you're still not married.”

Zelda froze, her face stiff and vacant.

“Oh my Stars – Sonic! Tails!” Peach screamed.

Zelda blinked and breathed, “I'm fine. Don't worry about it.”

Ruru rolled her eyes and adjusted the hand towel that she had wrapped around herself.

“Baka. Baka, baka, _ba-ka..._!” she scolded, hovering between their heads and pounding them each rapidly. Her strikes caused no pain, but were no less demonstrative for that.

Zelda sighed internally as she watched Peach's hair shorn down.

_Her reasoning to do so is sound, but I'm still gonna miss it... Ugh, Goddesses, what am I thinking? Fie! I care not what this girl does! Let her do as she wishes and have done with it; 'tis no concern of mine._

Peach had decided earlier that her hair was impractical for fighting, and discussed it with her. Zelda hadn't tried to dissuade her of her decision, had even agreed with her reasoning, but that made it no less of a loss.

=====

“Va bene! Excellent use o' spinnin' elbows, an' yer osotogari is good, keep workin' on it – an' your uchi mata – don't stop. Yer follow through is O.K., but the kesa-gatami needs work; it's still too slow 'n' sloppy, an' way too fuckin' loose. I can hook yer legs way the hell too easy, an' ferget the other escapes. Work yer grips, too, just remember that any time ya grip me, I got a grip on you.”

A month had come and gone, and Peach seemed to be catching on quickly to fighting. She'd progressed easily though the basics of stances and striking techniques, and had an incredibly intuitive grasp of the necessary motions; her blocks had been a little awkward at first, but rapidly showed an instinctive response. She didn't present any reticence at full-contact now, and had turned out to be a natural low-fighter, though she still preferred some distance. After some initial balking at holding knives reversed, her stance had adjusted and it now came naturally to her – enough that she sometimes had to remind herself to hold them forward for cooking and eating purposes. Her staff fighting was still awkward, but she'd taken to the nunchaku and butterfly knives like a fish to water. She was good with tonfa, and decent with kusarigama, but she kept shying away from full commitment with it; that could pose a problem when they got to swords and polearms.

She was doing quite well with her simple practice bow of yew, developing a sense of where and when prey might present itself and how best to fire instinctively, aiming blind and drawing in the same single movement as the release. Sonic was pleased with her overall progress, and hoped to advance her to three piece staff soon. Even with that in mind though, he'd felt the group dynamic change more than he'd expected. They were calmer, more focused. Grounded. She brought something to the table that they hadn't realized they'd needed.

Zelda was still on edge, waiting for some mishap to overtake her, or for more predators to strike when nobody was about. She took to accompanying Peach everywhere, a looming, brooding presence even when only trees were the greatest threat – after all, it's dangerous to go alone.

After the immediate escape and more leisurely general travel, and now with so much to learn, it had yet to occur to Peach to wonder what ultimate destination they were headed toward.

Yule **6** morning.

The new year met them on the east face of the peak of Mount Dagurashibanipal **7** , named for a legendary dragon. They sat and watched together as the sun rose, enjoying the beauty and simplicity, hot tea filling them with warmth, sharing the moment. The altocumulus clouds below them were like a tranquil sea of mist, lapping and undulating at a scale that no sea of water could match, where farther down still the range behind them held a northerly curve that afforded them a beautiful view of the northern face's nearly tidal marking of different strata and flora. The sky above them was clear for now, miles from any weather, only the cirrostratus wisps present in any number. Peach's mind wandered across the beauty of the atmospheric boundary layers.

An ice storm had hit several days earlier, interfering with both the party's travel in general and Tails's atmospheric investigations in particular, and so they remained encamped here for the moment. There was a serene beauty to it all. The air was quiet, aside from faint reports of hemlock trees shattering in the cold.

Sonic was reflecting on Peach's progress. _Her chi strikes are act'chly beginnin' ta hurt a bit. Not much more'n bee stings really, but more'n enough ta cause someone some serious damage. Good. Damn' good – though we're gonna_ _hafta_ _step up her shiatsu a bunch, in case she needs ta fix any little accidents._

Ruru floated in quickly from some nearby trees, wearing a smug look as she held a sprig of mistletoe over Zelda. Catching Peach's hopeful look, Zelda set aside her stuffed ham hock un schnitz as she finished chewing. She had to admit that Peach's meats really were pretty decent.

“You keep that up, lass, and I'll ply you with plum wine and have my way with you!”

Peach's eyes went wide at this, her sudden intake audible to all.

“O.K.!” she squeaked breathlessly, looking upward with her head tucked down innocently, leaning forward some and squeezing her shoulders inward just a bit.

Her gaze drawn downward unexpectedly, Zelda's eyes fixed on Peach's chest, and her breathing shallowed as she felt her pulse quicken. Her voice thickened.

“Ahh, well, maybe we'll just stick tae the plum wine for now, then, shall we?”

Peach smiled and blushed, but moved impulsively to give Zelda a quick peck on her cheek just as dawn, robed in a flash of saffron, cracked the horizon, lingering a hair longer than convention required, her lips brushing slowly across Zelda's as she pulled her head back.

Zelda's heart jumped.

_Nayru, I can taste her lips, I'm breathing her very breaths..._

For a long moment, she struggled against the urge to lean in, to embrace the moment and return the kiss, to pull Peach to her at last and touch her hair, gaze deeply into her eyes.

“Happy 6560!” Peach whispered, less than an inch away.

Zelda was stunned, her eyes flitting about. The warmth of Peach's presence so intimately near was so unlike that of merely sitting together companionably. Peach's lips, slightly open, let her breath wash over Zelda's face warm and pleasing. _So close..._

Time's passage stilled. Almost she could feel her hand draw upward, this continued moment spanning onward as the world receded around them.

Peach drew away again, though not so quickly as to seem offended; indeed, if anything, she'd pulled away so slowly as to be tantalizing, and seemed to be more pleased than anything else with Zelda's response.

_Her lips were so soft. I can still feel her sweet breath on me. I could return that kiss, even now – oh Goddesses, how I so ache to – but to do so would mean... what? For that matter, what might such betide? The risk is ever too great._

A small shock ran through Zelda when Peach licked her lips, for all the world as if she herself had been eating the hock un schnitz, not having shied away from the juices that Zelda had all across her mouth and jaw and that hence she too now wore alike.

Ruru smiled with self satisfaction, and hummed to herself as she wove the sprig into Peach's hair.

“Next year, in Hyrule, no?” Sonic toasted, raising his wineskin.

Later, as they whiled away the evening, Peach looked up from her ozōni soup and smiled. The soup contained a light and delicate blend of dashi and white miso, with a sweet bean paste within rice balls, and a thin surface of aromatic oil blanketing the whole; the air held a cool, crisp pine scent; their bellies were full, they were all together and happy, each contentedly enjoying the flow of conversation (Tails splitting his attention with a question of quantum net spin and total angular momentum that he'd been pursuing lately), with one of Zelda's cigars lending a warm sweetness to it all.

That night, Peach's ongoing tale of Bearskin and Candida had them deep in a desert expedition in which they discovered a cave of wonders; trapped there by a sorcerer, they found a wardrobe that was much larger within than without. They had stepped into it, only to be whisked away to a world of strange magics under foreign stars. Caught up soon in the quelling of a usurpation of the Tin Men's kingdom by the evil Rat King, their ship floundered in a storm, the morning finding them adrift and bereft of direction or support. Hours passed before they'd spotted any possible hope – what appeared to be a floating island of plant life, its form changing to match the waves that bore it. Once again, the tide of their fortunes turned, and they were befriended by the creatures who lived there, who were in turn besieged by a mysterious mechanical monster plaguing their waters.

Looking around, Peach found everyone lulled to sleep.

Banking the fire carefully, she brought out some blankets and tucked everyone in, cozying up to Zelda at the last, their feather duvet all but unneeded in the still night air.

=====

A second ice storm caught them in the saddle to the next mountain.

It began with a simple freezing rain, but then the moisture dropped off as the temperature fell away. At this point, Sonic handed out little pots of rendered fat to smear across any skin that was open to the air. He chuckled at Peach as she placed her index finger fore-knuckle to one nostril and violently blew forth an obviously singularly satisfying snot rocket through her other nostril – she'd shown herself to be extremely pragmatic, picking up distasteful tools when they proved themselves useful and necessary.

He had hoped to make it to the lee of the saddle ahead of the weather, and they did, but only barely before the wind kicked up and the intermittent spritz was joined by pellets of hail. _Ahh, sleet_ , his “favorite.” He'd removed Epona's shoe-studs the other day, in anticipation of further ice storms. Her shoes were aluminum rims with borium, so he wasn't too worried for now, but she wouldn't be able to go far in this storm even if they wished to try.

Finding a decent campsite didn't take long. A curve of rock face deflected most of the wind from a tiny vale, and the trees were thick there. Hurrying in, they tethered her beneath a huge fir next to an overhang, the area thick with soft humus. There was a small, frozen pond nearby, around which the withered ends of water plants sprouted in thick tufts, ensuring that she had plenty to eat. They threw together an improvised stable from fallen limbs with the needles still fresh; this wouldn't have sufficed alone, but with the rock shelter and thick underbrush surrounding it, as well as the rich canopy, it was surprisingly cozy, if somewhat gloomy – enough so, at least, that Sonic removed her blanket for the evening.

Three inches of glass-like ice accumulated beyond their burrow within the first hour as they cooked lunch. They'd stripped some inner bark and pine nuts and needles to make a simple soup, tossing in some scraps of squirrel **8** from yesterday's dinner and a few handfuls of acorns. By the time that they had eaten, the wind had shifted enough that their campfire was no longer viable.

Zelda entered her tent, and after a few moments a strange light-but-dark violet glow lit it briefly from within. As the others entered it, they found it warm and inviting, particularly as the wind died down and the patter of sleet increased, punctuated by occasional thunder-cracks of exploding oaks. Sonic tilted his head toward the outside as he came in, grumbling something to himself about “... _fuckin' Snow Miser_...” and “... _peppermint patties, my ass_...”

The lean-to that they had put up within a recently fallen tree's crown was reasonably sound and spacious, but her tent was greatly appreciated. It was one of the rare times that Sonic or Tails ever sought to sleep within, but it was for just such times that she'd invested in it – it had the capability of expanding to accommodate four people in a pinch.

As the afternoon turned to evening, and evening to night, more ice accumulated across the limbs and branches above the tent. Soon there was enough cover that the sheeting barred most of the weather and further insulated them within an igloo-like shell. Sonic took this as an opportunity to bend Peach's ear about digging into snowbanks for shelter with an upward sloping entrance, and poking a thin ventilation shaft. This went on to a tangent about sand dunes, with an anchored sheet for cover – preferably with a sandwiching layer a foot beneath that one.

=====

Peach's training went on, and Zelda found her turning into a worthy opponent – not as yet her own level by a wide margin, but spirited and talented. She could fight well, and had a tenacity about her that bespake her determination. Zelda had to clamp down on her idle thoughts at times, lest they wander into unsafe territory. Peach's skill demanded some respect, but that very fact sparked a lust within her that she wanted no part of, no matter how much she yearned for it. Their sparring sessions were grueling in more than one respect, and time served only to stoke this sway that Peach held over her.

_The sweat running down her limbs and torso, her waist especially, her natural scent everywhere and enhanced with fight-scent._

For her own part, Peach was focused narrowly on her training, learning whatever she could and quickly adding it to her skill set. That didn't stop her thoughts from straying though. She multitasked easily, and so her mind was often on domestic vacation – baking something for Zelda, snuggling together someplace private, or just basking in her attention.

That aside though, she'd progressed well from kibon to taegeuk. They felt so very similar to her, but she certainly preferred the latter; something about them felt more focused upon the target, rather than upon the familiarizing practice of muscle memory in itself.

=====

_The world was empty. Completely desolate. A vast wasteland of dust, its surface speckled with the rare intact structure._

_Scattered survivors banded together, on the run from zombie hordes, and always in search of food themselves. There was no panic over it. Zombies were a nice, simple threat, easily dealt with._

_They were running now, desperate to take shelter before the pursuing horde overtook them._

_Just another day in Paradise._

_They made it, and secured the breach before the first shambling things reached them._

_Barely._

_Looking out, Zelda could see the oncoming storm bearing down on them, right on the heels of their hard-won safety._

_Their efforts weren't going to have mattered._

_They never mattered._

_The sky fell down, a black acid rain dissolving whatever it touched as a funnel dropped from a vast wall cloud, meteorites beginning to pelt the land._

_The ground trembled, opening beneath them for a moment, before all and sundry were swept up in the storm's wake._

Peach awoke to the sweet tea-like scent of a cigar.

It was still completely dark out, the only light a dim glow from their lantern.

Zelda shushed her to go back to sleep, but she sat up instead.

“Night terrors?”

She hardly needed to ask, especially with Zelda's pillow still visibly sodden, even now.

Instead of answering, Zelda simply held a deep lungful of smoke before exhaling. Her eyes were pinched and dry, as if utterly drained and yet not collapsed. Two cigar roaches bore mute testimony to this conclusion.

“ _Moonlight before my bed,_  
_perhaps frost on the ground._  
_Lift my head and see the moon,_  
_lower my head and pine for home._ ”

“It's bittersweet, but beautiful. Who wrote it?”

Zelda stared on a moment longer before answering.

“Li Po. A poet long, long ago. Aye, and it's not so much the demons without as those within, the parasites that feed on us – not even what haunts us, but the lure of a fantasy world as it sinks its tendrils into us, ephemeral as the dry leaves of Faerie food...

“ _No single thing abides, but all things flow._  
_Fragment to fragment clings, the things thus grow,_  
_until we know and name them._  
_By degrees they melt,_  
_and are no more the things we know._

“That one's Lucretius, a poet-philosopher who lived even further back.”

Peach retrieved a few pint bottles of Guinness and stayed up with Zelda 'til dawn, sometimes talking, but mostly just being there. Between the double stout and the smokey haze from Zelda's cigars, her head was full of cotton, but it all lent a warmth that made the tent cozy for both of them.

Zelda's thoughts waxed morose, but no longer alone.

_When you were here before,_  
_couldn't look you in the eye;_  
_you're just like an angel,_  
_your skin makes me cry;_

_you float like a feather_  
_in a beautiful world,_  
_and I wish I was special_  
_– you're so fuckin' special,_

_but I'm a creep,_  
_I'm a weirdo,_  
_– what the hell am I doing here?_  
_I don't belong here..._

Dawn saw Zelda leaning back against Peach, nodding off in turns with her head against Peach's shoulder, starting awake less frequently, Peach just holding her and letting her thoughts drift.

Peach's mind was still wandering peacefully when the sun had reached a full hand span above the horizon and Sonic tapped gently at the tent flap. When he poked his head in, he nodded quietly and returned with a large, steaming bowl of moussaká and a hot pot of strong yak butter tea. She thanked him, and he sat with her for a while as she ate.

=====

Their route began to take a slightly more southerly direction, curving around the northeastern corner of the perpetually shadowed Koopa Kingdom. The continual veils of grayish-yellowish tan-talcum dust storms lowing softly to the north began to give way to a succession of ever-lower mountains and a green-gray haze along the east. Soon they could make out vast billowing masses that looked like clouds, though their colors were wrong, and they never moved nor changed shape. Between them all seemed to move slow streams of mist. All of this went on for miles, as far as the eye could see from even this height, with air so clean as to be nearly crystal clear.

As they moved more southerly, the cloud-things began to show the odd bit of deep greenish darkness, and areas of pale yellowish-green.

Staring out across it all as they made camp one evening, Peach finally realized what she'd been seeing for the past several hundred miles.

“Oh my Stars, that's... Schöndunkelundtief Forest **9**! _All_ of it is. It _has_ been for weeks now! How big are those trees, anyway?”

Zelda licked her lips.

“You see those huge dunes?”

Peach nodded.

“How wide do you think they are?”

Peach made a few odd faces as she bobbed her head around for different views before giving up.

“They're farther away than you think. They're mostly five to ten miles across, and they're not dunes – they're mushrooms. Those big dark areas of green are trees – individual trees. The lighter areas that sort of shimmer when you focus on them are ferns and bamboo. All along the north and east are succulents. The southern end has diverse man-eaters. Deep within the heart of the forest are molds and such of the same scale. Some of the plants are even silicon based, and others are even stranger, though you'd be wanting Tails for details of that. The whole place is a Faerie forest the likes of which beggar the imagination, wherein yōkai abound, and we've traveled only half of its western border.”

They made their way almost directly southeast now, and the time passed both slowly and quickly as Sonic continued to mentor Peach in a wide spread of fighting styles, rope binding, escape techniques, lock picking and bumping, disguises, scaling and rappelling, basic encryption, basic and abnormal psychology, destabilization and fnords, reconnaissance, survival, escape, evasion, interrogation and resistance, infiltration and exfiltration, tracking, emergency responses, and so much more. At the same time, she was included in every aspect of preparing every meal; she learned the many mother sauces, the holy trinity in its various forms, the careful selection of mirepoix (and several related combinations) and just the right bouquet garni and herbes de Provence, the pairing of wines or other beverages with the dishes, the alternation of sweet with savory, the proper sequences of courses.

Any given day saw her dealing with daily life blindfolded, weights on her feet, her hands chained to her waist, and under other hobbling conditions. She spent a week deafened with cheese in her ears. Through all of this, both before and after every meal, she spent grueling hours barefoot, hammering boards with palm-heel strikes, hammer fists and back-hand punches, her forearms and elbows, calves and thighs, knees, shins, and heels, driving her knife hands and half-fists into cookware filled with grains and pebbles, rotating through calculated strikes with her wrists bound close, snuffing Ruru's illusory candles from increasing distances with only the projected force of her would-be strikes, and moving slowly through or maintaining a multitude of awkward positions.

Slowly her striking surfaces toughened, her core and grip strengthened, her reflex times plummeted, her atemi grew more penetrating and precise, and she channeled chi with greater focus. She honed her foraging skills, her plant identification and uses, spotting animal trails and nesting areas. Her cooking improved.

Tails tutored her in math, categorical logic, physics, chemistry, general principles of mechanics and electronics, medicine and sewing, self-aid / buddy care, botany, anatomy, the principles of astronomy, and some limited magics. Their discussions of electronic warfare fascinated her, especially the applications to difference engines and calculating machines, even though they did little good without any systems available to them, and often digressed to considerations of cellular automata rule sets in various grids and neighborhoods, busy beavers, Langton ants, spatialized and iterated variations on the Prisoner's Dilemma and related equilibria, and so forth (all of which bogged down badly when they strayed into the question of applying them within aperiodic Penrose tilings and Voronoi diagrams and populations with mixed rule-sets, at which point Sonic had interjected one of his cryptic remarks “ _Ahh, The Truth About Kites and Darts..._ ”, to which Tails had nodded quite seriously and quite evidently missed the fact of the missed allusion, which left Peach even more mystified). He also covered psychology, though from a more therapeutic perspective, less analytical and leverage-oriented than Sonic's. He was a little less forthcoming with physics and chemistry than the rest of it, but Peach didn't mind or pay it much heed.

Zelda pitched in periodically with all of this, throwing in bits about navigation, languages, playing card games, cheating at card games, reading people, various gambling odds, picking pockets, shop lifting, concealing items. Once Peach had some training under her belt, Zelda even began to teach her how to throw knives. It turned out that she knew a lot of dirty tricks.

Ruru kibitzed everything, offering all kinds of hints and suggestions and opinions, though having no clue about most of it, and generally being no help at all, but making for a fun time at every turn.

It wasn't all one-sided though – or four-sided. Peach talked about politics and exchange rates from her own tutelage, supplied them with a wealth of history and legends that Zelda had forgotten, social traditions to ease discussions, weird little connections of one invention or discovery leading to another in entirely unrelated fields (the first time that Sonic heard her mention this, he had asked about weaving looms and computing machines; he wasn't at all surprised when she nodded and went on about lateen sails and canned goods).

Fishing with poles and nets and spears and bows and traps (the ideas of lobster traps in the current for fish and luring fish into pool skimmers were novel and enthralling to her, and although beheading them behind the gills and gutting them from tail to neck made her feel sorry for them [not that she was terribly fond of killing or mutilating plants or fungi, either], she found the process of filleting down the spine after cooking them to be a fine art), hunting, tracking, trapping **10** , learning all about crossbows – breathe, aim, slack, squeeze (and she loved the ghillie suit, not to mention Sonic's odd introduction of “ _Say hullo ta my little friend..._ ,” though the “sweet spot” just below the nose disturbed her quite a bit) – practicing with both a stiff wood bokken and the longer bamboo shinai which each still seemed lethal enough to her not to need sharpened metal or chipped stone edges... For months now, it had been like a vacation, a boisterous holiday celebration get-together, a dream, and years of schooling all packed together. She soaked it all up, hungry for more.

At one point, Sonic showed Peach her name: his left hand balled up similar to a hammer fist, then brushed his right hand across the top as if petting something fuzzy – such as a _peach_. Peach was thrilled to _see_ her own name come to life, understanding it immediately and showing it to everyone in excitement, rapidly picking up a lot more sign. Tails was surprisingly talkative in sign, and her eyes lit up upon seeing “good morning,” and “good night.” She soon learned to sign “O” and “K,” “I want,” “book,” “sleep,” “food,” “I think,” “I know,” “I forget,” “thank you,” “sorry,” the differences in colors such as light and dark blue, the structural simplicity of the grammar in contrast to that of spoken Common. It wasn't long at all before she also learned “fuck you” and “bored,” both of which saw her eyes go wide and her cheeks redden.

That same evening she signed her first word-play.

Reaching for more mofongo and pheasant meat, Ruru offered her some gizzards.

Giving Ruru a look that showed her opinion of that thought, Peach held up her hand in a curled “G,” cocking her brow in question and nodding to the gizzards, then brought that same “G” next to her temple and gave it a sharp forward-twist to reply “crazy,” and helped herself to the liver as Ruru laughed. The gizzards didn't go to waste though; as with every meal, anything left uneaten – including bones and cartilage, offal, corncobs, stale crusts, feathers, hooves, rinds, cores, and materials from the actual preparation of the meal – was tossed into a pot with very little water and kept at a low boil to dissolve everything into a late-night soup, some of which often made it through to the next meal as a sauce. Everything but seeds and some hyphae, that is. Some of these made their way into bread, others were roasted for treats, but a great many were sown at random as they traveled.

At another point, Sonic approached her with a glint in his eye, and a grin that promised some deviltry.

“C'mon, P, me 'n' Tails got some shit ta show ya. You'll prob'ly like it – things that make ya go _boom_!”

After a hundred paces or so, they reached a clearing. Tails was fiddling with materials that were set out on a large, flat rock.

She drew her eyes across them, identifying everything with ease, unable to imagine how they related to one another: copper tubes and wires, magnets, batteries, steel wool, nail polish remover, ammonia, iodine, cheesecloth, sheets of paper, duct tape, sugar, peroxide, a bucket of night soil, a bag each of charcoal and fertilizer, some wristwatches, bleach, aluminum foil, magnesium... and prosciutto.

_Well, at least I know what they got during their oh-so-secret surprise shopping trip to the Koopa village._

Sonic nudged her elbow and gave her a wink.

“After this, ya graduate ta toxins an' venoms. Then I'll show ya how ta fish the easy way with the products of our current lesson - an' with the leftover charcoal, I'll teach ya how ta make soap an' lutefisk!”

It was an hour before her ears ceased their ringing. The flash-bang from the small balloons of hydrogen and oxygen that Tails had gathered from the electrolysis setup had amazed her, but the demonstrations of fuel-air explosives from simple powders or flammable fluids had shaken her bones even at twenty paces. She'd remember for sure to keep her mouth open and cover her ears in the future. The concept of shaped charges fascinated her, and she looked forward to that with eager anticipation.

Zelda and Ruru came by with snacks after that, having had no interest in the tutorial material. They were there for the fun stuff.

“Y'know the prob'm wit' tough guys, P? They're always talkin' shit, tryna make 'emselves look bigger 'n' badder than the next guy. 'snot worth getting' inta shit with 'em over it though. I just mind my own business an' watch 'em bluster, sittin' there quietly stirrin' the fire with my dick.”

Peach blushed at this, but chuckled. Neither the humor nor the allegory were lost to her.

They were still far up in the mountains, but the land had been changing around them for some time now. Civilization and other people were once more concerns to keep in mind.

“Same basic shit applies wherever. Ponces, fer example.”

“Ponces?”

“Hmm, maybe that's just Zelda's word. Ehh, coxcombs? Shit, same prob'm. Fancy assholes who love 'emselves.”

She didn't care to speak ill of anyone, but she knew too well the sort that he meant. Ducking her head down to the side, she nodded uneasily.

Sonic smiled and shook his head.

“Yer a good kid, P. Let's hope the world lets ya stay that way.”

He sniffed at the exhaust from their improvised tandoor – for the construction of which he had pressed Peach into service, naturally. They were following a less-traveled main road southward along the somewhat ambiguous eastern border region of the Koopa Kingdom and had found a layby that was particularly suited for this, beneath an overhanging with outcrops to either side and well out of any likely weather; it might not see much further use very often in the future, but would certainly stand for quite some time to come should any other travelers find need of it.

Looking back at Peach, he asked, “Pop-quiz – tell me about this meatloaf in here.”

Peach panicked, went blank, and then sagged in relief as the images replayed in her mind's eye.

“It's a honey Dijon meatloaf. Ground beef and lamb, savory, black pepper, ash-smoked sea salt, some MSG – _mmm_ – and thin cheesy butter all kneaded together, basically. Then after the whole thing was in the pan, we tossed in a flew blobs and spatters of mustard and some more meat with a drizzle of mayonnaise on top. Finally a layer of sliced tomato, covered with mashed potatoes and Parmigiano-Reggiano – and then another layer of meat, of course.”

Sonic grinned conspiratorially, then took a quick peek in Zelda's direction.

Leaning in to Peach, he gestured for her to do the same.

Keeping his voice conversational, but indistinct and lowered, he conspired.

“Yeah, well done, P. Y'know, ah... _the secret ta some people lies in their stomachs_ ,” winking and stomping his foot in an exaggeratedly quiet way as he said this, “it's all about the 'S's: savory, sage, saffron, an' salt – grease too, but I can't get an 'S' outta that; just... maybe not so much with the peanut satés, 'less ya leave out the peanut paste an' then yer a'ight. An' if she knew I told ya that, she'd _kill_ me.”

She nodded studiously, repeating the “S”s and grease to herself.

“Mind you, that's just _some people_ , y'know?” he cleared his throat firmly, “I'm'a say this real loud, so the people in the back can hear me: that's just the secret ta some people _in par-ti-cu-lar..._?” he tilted his head sideways, twitching it toward Zelda a few times, his eyebrows far up and his eyes wide as he darted them in her direction, “just trust me when I say Mikey likes it.”

Peach blinked, then her eyes went wide, as her face transformed and her mouth took on a huge “O” shape. At this, she began repeating her “S”s and grease with a furious concentration.

Sonic chuckled at this and went back to sniffing the meatloaf's outgassing. _Needs kale. Gonna have ta see if we can get some aroun' here. Maybe kohlrabi; that'd work too, an' a lot easier ta find... yeah, an' maybe I_ shoulda _thrown in them cashews anyways, too... shit. Oh, well._

Once it was done, Peach threw in the sugar cookies that she'd worked on, with little red and green sprinkles and sparkling points of sugar crystals all over them, and pinches of fresh ginger and minced sorrel in each, and a few drops of honey, just for Zelda. There were snowmen and pine trees, crescent moons, stars, and cat faces.

“Ya got a bit o' schmutz on yer right cheek, there,” he mentioned, and as she wiped at it ineffectually, he added to her “S”-list with salmon, pig, cheese, and any kind of omelette.

Once the meatloaf and cookies were done, they set them out for everyone and declared it to be dinner time.

Zelda looked at Peach, whose eyes were as bright and wide as her hope-filled smile, then at the meatloaf, and her face froze for a moment. Then she shut her eyes against the tears that threatened to well up, even as her throat choked tight.

_Tenderness. Kindness. Caring._

_The way that she looks at me, as if I weren't some wretch to be scraped from her bootheel..._

Regaining her composure before Peach could go into a tizzy, Zelda nodded calmly to them both, “Thank you.

“ _You're_ still an asshole, though,” she told Sonic.

He just smiled at her.

“Right back at'cha, Z,” he retorted softly.

=====

“I know it's gettin' warmer, kid, but keep yer layers on. You up 'n' die o' pneumonia and I didn't do shit about it, Z'll kill me. Prob'ly a few times. I don't think I'd like that. Also, waddya think fer tonight? Bacon-corndogs wit' cheese?”

Peach sulked for a moment, then shrugged, “That sounds like a good flavor balance, and probably plenty of calories, but it needs more... more something.”

Sonic grinned.

“A'ight, we can work on it. A good thick 'n' rich chili **11** wit' loads o' butter an' rotini maybe, some pasta e fagioli, an' a nice little primavera salad,” he sniffed the air and looked around, “Hey, we should be in warm weather in no time, man. You smell that? That's good, deep-forest oxygen there, fulla plant life 'n' stuff. An' tell me you don't smell a small lake nearby, huh?”

She sniffed some and perked up in avid anticipation. She hadn't gotten to swim in ages, and Zelda seemed to liven up whenever they did.

As the trail descended slowly, Sonic quizzed her on the smells and textures that they encountered. The sharpness of a stream, the richness of the pine needles and detritus, the cool breeze with a hint of wet elm and an incoming afternoon spritz three or four hours distant.

Peach soon had her chance at a swim. The pond was frigid, but delicious, a cool sweet water clearly fed directly from a mountain spring.

It wasn't long before they'd all joined her, cavorting and splashing and just generally blowing off steam.

Zelda found herself smiling and didn't know why. It dawned on her that she was happy. Just that. Simply happy. Everyone was having a good time and nothing else really mattered just then.

She realized that she'd been staring for a while now. _Peach is just sitting there with water drops trickling here and there, her breasts tight and nipples hardened from the chill, beads of water sparkling as if to highlight and accentuate every nuance, her skin bright and flushed from the activity, her soft and luscious hips curving just so to the sweet fullness of her ass, the trickles running down her belly and upper thighs to her... Oh Nayru, to taste her, for her to writhe and moan beneath me..._

Zelda let out a deep sigh, her throat vibrating with it as she felt the pull of Peach's warmth and presence, smelling clean and fresh, her ever-present scent of honeysuckle permeating the area.

Flustered and nearly overwhelmed, she faltered, turning away before her thoughts could wander further.

To her relief, Peach was too engrossed in a conversation with Sonic about making dashi from kelp and fish to notice this – they were debating the finer points of using different species of seaweed and fish, with Peach leaning toward trying some maguro with the katsuobushi. To her even greater relief, Ruru seemed to have slept through it entirely, sunning herself with an array of invisible mirrors and lenses of magical energy to affect a sourceless all-over tan; how she'd given it a beach chair form was a bit of a puzzle. Tails was chasing butterflies, and so was completely unaware of any of this.

“That heather and lavender garland suits ye well, lass,” Zelda observed, her voice taking on an odd huskiness.

Peach blushed and shrugged nervously, squeezed Zelda in acknowledgment, and simply watched Zelda's hands on the reins, not knowing what to say. It gave her something to focus on beyond her kote-men-dou renzoku waza; her kamae were strong, but she kept neglecting her breathing.

At Zelda's remark though, her breaths now came slow and deep, more relaxed.

Indeed, her breath felt soft and warm against Zelda's neck, tickling the base of her skull and the backs of her ears as always, teasing her stray hairs and distracting her with pleasant thoughts, its sweetness curling just into her nose's range.

Their shared breaths were a distraction that she could live without, but one that she wouldn't care to do away with. The closeness, the intimacy of it all was a security blanket to her ever-jangling nerves. Something about Peach's very presence alone soothed her, comforted a raw and empty part of her. It also made her wish to turn around in the saddle and ravage her right there, driving constant daydreams as they rode.

_Her arms about my waist, her hands clasped at my dāntián... Nayru, how I long to lean back into her, to feel her tongue caressing the full lengths of my ears, nibbling at their tips and lobes, breathing slowly into them, moaning into them, her tongue gently probing, her hands surely lowering their position as she bites my neck... her soft body brushing across my spine..._

The towering mountain holdings of the Dwarven Undercold scraping the uppermost clouds to one side of their path grew less brooding; the ancient, titanic trees of Schöndunkelundtief Forest to the other side, marking the lands of Badder Country **12** , loomed farther away and slightly less gargantuan with distance. They would soon be beyond the outer marches of the empire.

The air grew rapidly thick, an oppressive heat bearing down from every direction, dry dust working its way into every breath and crevice.

As they came to the South Trail, the main road paralleling the coast, they reached a border town. A bit small for a town, but still too busy to quite qualify as a mere village. At the corner of the intersection to Ocean Parkway, Zelda stopped in the middle of what she'd been saying, staring ahead numbly. A restaurant shaped and painted like a crystal castle.

“Dude, y'aight?” Sonic glanced at Zelda, then in the direction of her gaze.

“Valjean's? That name mean some'n to ya?”

Zelda raised her head slightly, then lowered it, “It's someone who died a long time ago...”

“Great. Every fuckin' time I think I got a handle on things, this fuckin' place just keeps gettin' weirder 'n' fuckin' weirder. The path o' my life is strewn wit' cowpats from the Devil's own Satanic herd!

“I know that look, Z. Is it safe?”

And again, after she'd made no move to answer, “Is it _safe_?”

“I have to know...”

“ _Is it safe?_ ”

“Either most adamantly so, or else this is indeed a truly byzantine trap.”

“Great...”

Ahead of them lay _Valjean's burgers, Hylian-Dwarven fusion cuisine_. Nothing stirred in the area beyond a chitarrone strummed in an aimless tune from some nearby veranda, its frets slanted against equal temperament, strings slack and speaking of loneliness as a wolf howled in the distance.

“ 'least it ain't high noon,” he grumbled as a tumbleweed crossed their path, “an' hey, maybe they serve _spaghetti_ , huh? Just remember: no stinkin' badges.”

_If it don't go sideways, we'll be outta the sun for a few. Gettin' ta be that time, anyway._

Just as they gained the wood sidewalk adjacent their goal, a mustachioed Saguaro wearing a sombrero and a kilt came out and floated past them.

“Anyone else see that shit...?” Sonic asked after a moment of eyeballing it.

Peach glanced in the direction that he was looking, “The outfit _is_ a trifle unusual, but sensible in this climate.”

“Uh-huh... an' that's normal ta you?”

She wasn't sure of how to respond.

“It was a _cactus_ , P, an' it _wasn't_ touchin' the ground. An' it was _talkin'_ to itself. An' it was drinkin' a freakin' _cherry-limeade slushy_ , wit' an _orange creamsicle_ in his other hand... or pad. Whatever.”

“Oh,” she replied, seeming to grasp his point now, “they **13** just do that – hover around, I mean – and I would love a slushy right now, too. Or a creamsicle. I've never met a Cactus myself, but I haven't heard anything bad about them.”

“Yeah, no – I mean... never mind, 'scool,” rubbing his forehead, he let it rest.

_Reminds me – gotta show P about cookin' the spines offa cacti, an' we need ta start focusin' on night travel._

They entered, and the waiter stiffened to attention immediately upon seeing them. That wasn't a simple customer service stance – his eyes and everything else about him showed instant recognition. Sonic didn't like it. Another waiter in the back stood still for a moment, turned around, and headed straight into the kitchen.

“Table for five, ma'am?”

Zelda just held his eyes. Nothing suspicious in his behavior or look; bearded, about four and half feet tall, stout as a barrel and twice as burly in banded armor, sporting a few steel studs here and there, and a multi-tool hand axe at his belt. Just some anonymous workaday Dwarf.

He took this as assent and proceeded toward the back of the restaurant, warning them to “mind the till – bloody-minded beast” and eyeing the cash register warily as they passed it, pulling away a curtain for them to enter the back room.

There was a handful of Dwarves within the adjacent room, sitting and eating, some talking or reading. A few looked up and stood respectfully. Silence descended as the rest followed suit.

The waiter from earlier arrived with a tray of food. Zelda glanced down at it and her breath hitched audibly.

The tray held two ratburgers, a carton of fries, a milkshake, five rupees, and three silvers.

Sonic tensed. He couldn't see any trouble, but he could feel it screaming at him.

“Z? Ya look like someone just walked over yer grave.”

It turned out that Valjean was the name that she had gone by many years ago, when she'd first been on the run. She'd been desperate, hungry, alone. Her wanted poster had been everywhere when a relatively newlywed Dwarven couple had taken pity on her. After she'd left them, their business had done well, and they'd branched out. It was a family business, and they'd made it a standing order that everyone memorize her picture. If she were ever to enter one of their establishments, she was family – not treated as family, but family in fact. In their eyes, she was a Dwarf as much as anyone else in the room.

The tray of food had also been mandated. In her time with them, they'd exchanged recipes, and had come up with the forebear of the current Valjean Signature Special – a 'burger that turned out to be the basis of their eventual prosperity. It started with just a basic whey-and-corn-fed Kobe-Matsuzaka ratburger of well-aged meat with caramelized onions and a little adobo worked into it, the perforated patty then being marinated in soy sauce and aged Balsamic vinegar; it was initially seared on hot iron to hold in the juices before performing the overall slow grilling over an open fire with just a little bamboo in the flames, brushed with butter before and after every one of the many flips, and once placed onto the toasted sourdough bun, Roquefort was crumbled over it and topped with a layer of softened cheddar, and finally six slices of ratbacon smoked en suite with apple and oak, and some okonomi sauce, with a shiitake cap as the top of the bun.

This resulting ratburger was the type that was on the tray, and the waffle fries had evolved into an assortment of fries made of several different roots and vegetables, each with individualized seasonings, but on the whole it was precisely what she'd been offered that first night, right down to the change for what she hadn't paid.

“Are they...?” Zelda couldn't finish her question.

The waiter who had brought them to the back room nodded, “They're fine. Still running things back in Hyrule, in fact, or at least as recently as last Tuesday–”

“Wednesday,” the other waiter corrected.

“–Wednesday,” he amended, without missing a beat.

The party stayed the night there, resting and eating and exchanging stories of the years gone by. Peach learned a lot about Zelda's wild days. More food was pressed upon them throughout, and again in the morning before they took their leave, their bellies groaning, along with copious supplies that would have been insulting to have turned down.

=====

“Y'know how P don't talk about her family, right? Like, _ever_?” Sonic asked when they had a moment alone.

Zelda nodded once, a look crossing her face that said that she knew this full well, and didn't relish her surmise in the least.

“Wuzzat tell ya?”

Zelda pursed her lips, brooding, her countenance clouding darkly.

“Uh-huh, same here,” he continued, “I ain't tryna push it, but there's no good time ta talk about it, an' it ain't like there's a lotta chances we can talk alone.”

He picked at some clover between his feet.

Notwithstanding, neither said anything for a few minutes thereafter. There was time. Peach was down by the stream, safe within their view.

“I don't know, Sonic,” Zelda finally replied, “she hasn't said anything about them to me, and she never stops talking about everything else.”

“She ain't asked me about getting' back ta the Mushroom Kingdom, neither – an' fer as much as she's inta you, I don't think yer the only reason why. Alls I know is, some'n ain't kosher.”

Zelda turned away briskly, avoiding the topic of Peach's amorous pursuits.

“D'ye think she's running from something then? Beatings maybe?” her look darkened greatly, taking on a deathly-still hardness that he wouldn't want pointed at him, “ _Molested...?_ ”

“Nah man, it ain't that. Some'n else,” he said slowly, scratching his jaw as he mulled over how to phrase it without causing Zelda to go ballistic, “ 's'more like she don't really think about 'em at all, y'know?”

“ _Peach?_ Not think about someone?”

“Yeah. Exactly. She ain't like that, but that's pretty much it,” he concluded, “they just ain't on her radar at all, like they're not even there.”

Peach had just finished splashing Tails and Ruru, and turned back to wave to Zelda and Sonic.

They waved back, and exchanged a look.

“Aye, that's truly not like her at all.”

“An' y'ever hear her bitch or complain about anything? Anything at all, even fuckin' once? Even just ta kvetch outta general principle? That ain't normal fer _anyone_.”

“Alright, and what are ye driving at, man?” Zelda's speech shed years at this, sounding much as she had when he'd first met her, lilting fluidly and all full of rounded vowels and tapped “r”s.

“She's vulnerable.”

“Aye, an' a blind man could see that, ye great twat!”

“No. Listen,” he glanced back down to the stream where the others frolicked and back to Zelda, “some'n inside o' her is just a big damn' open hole an' she's bleedin' out inta the water but don't know it. You been gettin' soft on her – shaddup, it's in yer eyes an' everything ya do – you been getting' soft, an' I'm worried ya might both be goin' down some road that's gonna hurt a shit-ton.”

“Aye, right. Ye daft?”

“Look, this is goin' the wrong way. I'm tryna say that...” he blew out a breath, “just be careful, a'ight?”

=====

Passing a trader on the road eastward across the lowlands, they picked up a motley of clothing and some musical instruments. Tails had suggested that a troupe of entertainers wouldn't draw much notice.

Peach also acquired two bottles of Whacka Juice from the trader, and introduced Zelda to it. A deep rum flavor with a strong presence of chocolate liqueur and highlights of crème de menthe, Zelda took to it in a heartbeat.

“Well,” she admitted, “I do rather like cream liqueurs.”

“And Eiswein, or a good spiced plum wine,” Peach added helpfully.

“...an' amaretto, 'n' Guinness, 'n' Auslese 'n' Spätlese...” added Sonic, counting off his fingers.

“...and cherry brandy, and dry vermouth, and hot saké, and pretty much everything else,” Ruru concluded with a nod.

“You have the wrong of me, there! I'll not tolerate Tanqueray nor sambuca, as I've a taste for neither pine trees nor used motor oil. Either of those leaves you feeling as if there's a party in your mouth and everyone's puking!”

A moment passed.

“And those funny-smelling cigars she's always smoking. Don't forget those! She always gets so sweet and relaxed after one of them – at least until she nods off, I mean...” Tails chimed in with some serious thought, as if the list were still going.

What transpired was an impromptu bullshit session and general party.

The afternoon saw one bottle being passed around in general while the other stayed with Zelda, as did Peach. She was hardly trying to get Zelda drunk or play the strumpet, but one might be hard pressed to see the difference at any distance. Sitting beside her, Peach had finagled her way into Zelda's arm, leaning into her and nestling her head in the crook of Zelda's neck, snuggling herself close with her shoulder buried within Zelda's armpit. Zelda didn't seem to mind or even notice, just taking it in stride as a matter of course to go with the drink. Smoke enwreathed them as the bottle steadily depleted, so much so that even Peach began to feel soft and floating. Zelda's hand gently stroked her shoulder or hip, sometimes wandering boldly of its own accord to delve into more personal areas, thrilling Peach to no end, as did taking occasional swigs from the bottle right after Zelda had, or when Zelda did the same. Whereas Zelda's corded muscles were as steel, Peach was soft and well-rounded, as Zelda's absent-minded ministrations kept reminding them both, causing Peach's breathing to become noticeably thicker and more bothered as the afternoon progressed toward evening.

Sonic broke out three kinds of apples, half a dozen different cheeses, several species of mushrooms, a half-gallon of the local clover honey, and a rack of miniature sausages that he'd made. The sausages were a hit, their skins bursting like grapes as one bit into them, juice and grease flooding one's mouth, and a flavor somewhere between hard salami and bacon-dates, with undertones of a sweet vinegar and smoky barbecue and tiny bits of shrimp. This variation on Lebanon bologna had turned out to be well worth the hassle of having dragged them around while they cured for a week and a half, not to mention the hardwood cold-smoker that he and Tails had rigged to roll along with them for the next five days after that.

“She's a flutist, Sonic. A fucking _flutist_...” Zelda commented, “Did you know that she could play the flute?”

Her eyes were on the middle distance, a small smile painting her lips.

Sonic made a non-committal shrug, bobbing his head sideways. He didn't want to distract her, nor draw attention to her piqued interest and ruin it.

Peach still sat with Zelda, who now watched her fingers dance dexterously across the holes. Her gaze would return to Peach's taut embouchure and linger awhile, then down to her slowly heaving chest, across the flare of her hips and length of her legs. Peach wasn't entirely unaware of Zelda's hazily riveted lusting, and while she didn't play up to it wantonly, she also made no move to avert it, glancing over at times to hold Zelda's eyes briefly as she played.

Zelda couldn't know it, but she could feel the underlying complexity of Peach's melody dancing across the keys – B, G, E-flat... she improvised wildly, all the while blending the chords playfully, giant leaps dancing from one key center to the next, tripping across the thirds at 290 BPM, straying into every key while always wandering back to the theme. Zelda could practically _see_ the music flitting about before Peach could reach it, and then suddenly one or the other would spin away in a refrain wholly unexpected, like light-dappled ripples full of life. Her mind befogged, each moment passed as the next still formed, and she felt the breath of its life carry her forward.

Evening. Campfire in a glen, some distance off of the road. Will-o'-wisps – teine biorach, Zelda called them – danced across the distant heather all along the moor. The smell of sweet onion relish and roasting käsewurste and drippings blended with smoke from hickory and cherry wood, accompanied by snatches of laughter and music. Everyone was well stuffed on saffron rice and sweet and sour pork, now all relaxed in the soft glow of the fire, a large snake **14** having been skinned and set to the spit as two racks of salted fish and eel smoked above it with the promise of lutefisk to come as Sonic brought out graham crackers, marshmallows, and a rich chocolate.

Sonic was playing a bag-o'-doo **15** , providing an oddly soothing background with its blatty rumble.

Tails was tapping along on a small steel drum contraption, with an assortment of different-sized Orcish war-drums along its side. He wasn't particularly skilled with this, but he was enjoying himself.

Peach sang enthusiastically, dancing around and waving her arms to the lyrics as she sang.

“ _...hands up!_  
_Baby, hands up!_  
_Gimme your heart,_  
_gimme, gimme all your love,_  
_all your love..._ ”

“Ya do realize she didn't Rick-roll _us_ , right? _Just_ you. _Twice,_ ” needling Zelda a little more, Sonic wasn't letting that gem get away, “C'mon, man, ' _Together forever_ ' an' ' _Never gonna give you up_ '? Dude, she's throwin' it atcha. She's serious, man, this ain't just some... I dunno, bullshit infatuation or some'n.”

Zelda gave him a look, rolled her eyes, and flicked the backs of her middle and index fingers upward at him briefly in a V-shape.

Ruru danced in mid-air, whirling and bobbing as if a cork afloat in a storm-tossed sea, gyrating and thrusting her torso hungrily to the rhythm. Small flashes and blobs of foxfire sparkled around her, casting thin shimmering strands of color like miniature aurorae between glowing green symbols that fell like heavy snow followed by tracers, all within a volume of strobing actinic light and swirling dry ice fog. At the verge, a few odd bits of confetti, sparkles, and soap bubbles. The whole was cast in random spots of pixellation in time to the beat. With a string of violet glowsticks around her waist and red-and-blue-lensed glasses to complete the ensemble, she was quite a sight to see, especially when the strobe went black, leaving her limned by fluorescing blue-green mint bodypaint in tribal and circuitry patterns. This was all that she wore, but one's eyes would be hard pressed to notice that, with everything else going on around her.

“How much has Ruru had to drink, anyway?” Zelda wondered.

“I dunno. Ahh, three, maybe four capfuls.”

Zelda shot him a look.

“Those things must be two or three ounces a piece!”

“Hey, you seen 'er down whole cupcakes 'n' still throw back an entire Ramune. Don't gimme agita about her overindulgence now, man. Ya wanna bitch about it, bitch at her – an' ya know that won't do no good.”

Zelda nodded, shrugging.

Ruru adopted a thuggish stance, squinting at them as she wiped the back of her thumb across her nose, “Wa'shi wa... Drunken Master! Wai... why was she?” and giggled.

“Cul dere,” Zelda scoffed.

“That's _kuudere_ – kisama ass!” Ruru objected, chuckling at her own latest pun, and collapsing in a near-stupor.

Zelda looked back to Sonic, “She didn't have that fool's cap a moment ago, did she?”

“Ehh,” he replied.

He turned to her and added, “P really don't know what that song's about at all, huh?”

“Not a bloody clue,” Zelda agreed, shaking her head and smiling fondly, “though you'd think that she would have at least understood the undertones of ' _I touch myself_ '.”

“Ya'd think.”

 _Yeah,_ thought Sonic, _then again, maybe she really did..._

Peach launched into her next song.

“ _Ooh, baby, do you know what that's worth?_  
_Ooh, Heaven is a place on Earth..._ ”

As the evening wound down, a besotted Zelda arose, and everyone stilled. After casting a brief look toward Peach, a pure, rich contralto ushered forth softly, growing passionate as the stanzas progressed a capella, casting a mesmeric veil over them all.

“ _Quando sono solo, e sogno all'orizzonte, e mancan le parole,_  
_sì, lo so che non c'è luce in una stanza quando manca il sole,_  
_se non ci sei_  
_tu con me,_  
_con me._

_Su_  
_le finestre,_  
_mostra a tutti il mio cuore, che hai acceso;_

_chiudi_  
_dentro me_  
_la luce che_  
_hai incontrato per strada..._ ”

When she finished, the spell remained for several seconds more until a few hesitant claps began, followed by scattered cheers.

Zelda bowed and turned to sit, but paused, her mood now turning a bittersweet somber. Strumming a few slow dulcet bars on her lyrechord **16/sup >**, the others followed her lead, picking up the tune on their instruments.

“ _Ekhali na troyke s bubentsami,_  
_a vdali mel'kali ogon'ki..._  
_Mne b seichas, sokoliki, za vami,_  
_dushu bi razveyat' ot toski!..._ ”

Where the first had soared, this song pulled unrelenting at the heart, a wraith with a siren's sway. When she finished, a new spell of sorts had settled on the group. A sense of empty longing. Looking around, she nodded and shrugged, saying a single word: “ _Тоска,_ ” as if by way of explanation as she lit a cigar.

“ ' _You might think I'm crazy?_ ' ” Sonic chuckled to himself as he curled up for the night, “Never heard that song before, but it fits.”

As they fell asleep, Zelda rolled over and buried her face in Peach's chest.

Peach's eyes went wide at this.

“Mmm, y' nice-a'-warm, an' so fu'ing soft...” Zelda mumbled drunkenly from between Peach's breasts, licking her lips, and inadvertently Peach's breasts, as she snuggled closer “...'n' won'f'y... squishy...” she finished as she grabbed her ass and pulled her closer, settling in with a leg thrown over one of Peach's.

Peach's breath hitched as she looked down toward Zelda's head. After a moment, she just smiled and put her arm around her, pulling the covers up around them both.

=====

As they forged deeper into the brackish marshes of the southeastern hinterland, Peach's mosquito bites multiplied. Zelda showed no such issue, but found herself almost as distracted by Peach's suffering as Peach herself was.

Chiding her to eat more salt and garlic, Zelda drew the vinegar-damp cloth gently across Peach's back. Tails had made sure that they had a fair supply of it before entering the wetlands, a good apple cider vinegar, rich with the mother. Peach had been skeptical when he'd done this, but had since completely converted to swearing by it after the first application had nearly instantly removed the heated swelling and maddening itch and pain.

Mosquitoes weren't the only thing in great numbers. One plant that seemed to thrive perfectly well across the region was bracken, seemingly unaffected by the high salinity all about. The thick fern fronds provided ample cover for a great many small birds, mammals, lizards, and insects. While these and their microecologies made for a varied diet, Sonic made note to Peach that the leaves and rhizomes of the plant contained a fair amount of oxalic acid that needed to be cooked off before consumption. He said much the same of the horsetail shoots.

Their route tended a little northerly to take advantage of the better terrain, though the balance was difficult at times, often becoming quite arid, with sharp delineations between the two climes. In the wetter regions, they found a need to watch for the aggressions of hippopotami, but this came with a silver lining in that their misfortune of killing one early on was accompanied by the discovery that it made for excellent stews and roasts, somewhat between lamb and beef. Although this sustained them for quite some time, the whole had been too much meat for them to carry, even though it hadn't been a very large specimen in itself; luckily there were quite a few carrion eaters that were happy to make a meal of the extra portions.

Not long after that, they found any number of interesting ways to prepare crocodile. Skinning them was as slow a task as one might expect, but they didn't go to waste at all, providing all with much-needed expansions to their wardrobes. Its fishiness surprised Peach, as did the overall low fat content and its flexibility with recipes; over time, her favored presentation was with chutney, chili jelly of any sort, and a citrus drizzle, about which nobody had a single complaint. Wild rice abounded, and the stems went well with most of their meals. Everywhere around were cranberries, duckweed, cattails, broadleaf plantain, watercress, arrowhead, lovage, Hottentot-figs, water chestnut and water caltrop, and kelp. The water salinity varied quite a bit, but that just gave Sonic an excuse to show Peach how to build a simple still from mud and reeds, boiling off the water in the first pot to produce perfectly good salt as a byproduct, while condensing the steam into potable water by running the long spout-stem through a second bowl with a cooling bath surrounding the stem (the walls of the bath sealed at both ends around the stem, so that the stem could be submerged completely within the cooling bath) and leaves stuffed loosely into the end of the stem in order to capture as much moisture as possible upon exiting the tube over a third bowl – this became easier once there was sufficient potable water to bubble the steam up through it, letting the condensate act to liquefy what more it could that hadn't already been extracted by the bath. **17**

In the drier regions, Sonic had his chance to teach Peach about the pads and fruits of numerous species of cactus, spiders and other crawly things to avoid or to eat, and the importance of banging out one's clothing and gear upon awaking _before_ putting them on. Given how empty it appeared to be, Peach was worried about their food supplies and sources of water – they weren't about to go deep into the desert, but it was still a rather harsh land from what she'd read. As she soon discovered, she needn't have been concerned; hackberries, ironwood trees, wolfberries, mesquite, olive and palm trees, wild onions, goyo, desert chia, jojoba, many species of amaranth, tamarisk (their manna, more specifically), and chuparosas grew all over, not to mention the populations of tortoises, rabbits, gazelles, insects, and lizards. Water was almost as easy to come by, between succulents and saxaul tree bark, but she still learned to follow dry river beds and keep her eyes open for denser groupings of plants and darker patches of ground, especially near rock formations – this was more difficult at night, of course, but preferable by far to the punishing sun of daytime travel, not to mention that the exercise helped against the chill of the open land by night.

Wherever their path was mixed, they found a large number of species of land crabs, which delighted Peach. The odd patch of clover or beach strawberry went well with them, though the biggest surprise was held by the coconut crabs – fully a meter wide – which held oily sacs that tasted of peanut butter (she found these to go best with coconut meat).

In each of these terrains though, her fighting exercises never ceased, and she grew more versatile in each. She learned how to bend the tamarisk to a bow in seven pieces, strengthened with braided sinew backing for tension and a belly from the side of an ibex horn to resist compression, held together with glue from fish bladders after having first degreased the surfaces with a thin wood-ash lye then roughened the same to increase their bonding surface areas, and later heated to squeeze out excess glue for a stiffer backing and more reflex; once Sonic brought out the J-shaped piece of wood to tighten the three layers of sinew wrapping, her eyes had widened, knowing already how much more tension this would bring to them – she knew that this would be only her first wholly real bow, a mere training bow, though so much more than her practice bows to date, with only a gentle oven bake and not the months of time needed for it to season and polymerization to take good hold, but the final result with rawhide snakeskin was even so a thing of beauty to behold, and her heart swelled as Zelda taught her how to oil it properly against humidity. Her eyes began to pick out features without thinking, features that she'd have completely missed before. Her ears grew accustomed to the silence, such that she could hear and even identify prey much farther away than she'd ever imagined, and the silence now filled with sounds to her. The scents of different sands and stones began to take on meaning that carried volumes of important information, telling her what to expect in the coming miles. The lands all around began to open themselves to her as much as the forests and mountains had before them, and were rich with life and vibrant change.

When they encountered the rare village, they took the opportunity to supplement their seasonings and perishables (butter was always on the list). By this time, even Peach had begun to acquire an edge to her bearing, though anyone coming in from the bush was automatically accorded a degree of respect – and caution. There were no untoward incidents, at least no more so than Sonic's bending of the occasional barkeep's ear on suggestions for different materials to distill from, how to improve their alcohol content percentages, and considerations of infused flavors.

That's not to say that there were no incidents _entirely_.

It was in one such village that they encountered people on the edge of starvation. Bandits had demanded a levy from all in the area, and those who resisted were never again seen past dawn of the next day. They'd detoured just for this, ensuring that the bandits were no more, only to be approached by the village's mayor. He'd been the warlord before the bigger bad guys had shown their faces. Now he wanted to hire them, to bolster his diminished forces and return to business as usual, the way that it used to be, the way that it _should_ be. The incentive was food and sex on demand from the locals – anyone, any time, anywhere, any way; they'd live like kings in their own private brothel – and what little cash and plunder might catch their eyes. He didn't last long after that.

Two months after the encounter with Valjean's in the trading town fifteen hundred miles behind them, they stood reckoning the distance remaining to Freeport and deciding which route might offer the best travel.

“Yeah, we should be maybe fifty miles out,” Sonic said as he studied the map in Zelda's hands.

“Sixty-five miles north-northwest,” Peach announced as she put away her sunstone and compass.

Zelda and Sonic turned, plainly wondering just how she'd arrived at this.

“That particular breed of wasabi over there grows only within a thirty mile radius; Mount Ouroboros **18** is five or six degrees east of north, and there's only one river around here with three tributaries feeding into it at the same point.”

They blinked at this simple statement and continued to stare.

“What? I read a lot,” she continued, shrinking into herself a tiny bit.

A small Barrel Cactus floated past them, underscoring the emptiness of the area as she said this.

Sonic shook his head, thinking that he'd never get used to that.

=====

As evening approached on their last night together for a while, Sonic gave Zelda a look. She already knew what was coming.

“Goddesses, no...”

“C'mon, Z, it's been fer-fuckin'-ever man, an' P's never seen this shit – dude, she's gonna fuckin' love ' _The Holy Grail_ ,' hah? Hell, we can maybe throw in some ' _Meanin' o' life_ ' 'n' ' _Life o' Brian_ ' 'n' stuff an' call it a hat-trick. Waddya say? We might not get another chance, y'know,” his voice lowered meaningfully as he finished, then catching sight of Peach he amended this hastily, “ _fer a bit_ , I mean. You just sit back with her an' relax some, an' we'll get the ball rollin' in no time. A'ight?”

“With a cast of three?”

“Chill, we got this. Consider it a command performance.”

Munching away on chiles rellenos con chorizo, Peach was delighted, and especially enjoyed the “ _Spam_ ” and “ _Lumberjack_ ” songs. Having the perfect excuse to snuggle back against Zelda with a nice fat jug of hard cider didn't hurt, either.

Even Zelda enjoyed herself some. Sonic had put on all of these shows and more for her, years ago, trying to get her through a rough patch. It was good to see them again, albeit with a certain nostalgia. It was also kind of nice to feel Peach's soft, lush form resting against her.

**O ~~~ O**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Wolfen: Almost the Wolfen of Palladium FRPG, with some traits of Warhammer Beastmen. Equally likely to be born anthropoid or centauroid (like D&D's Wemic, or Poul Anderson's “Fire Time”). The anthropoids typically ride dire wargs. Social structures vary, paralleling those of native North American cultures; cooking (a highly respected profession throughout the Wolfen Nations) is more Asian. Party-wars (detailed later) model the bluster of drunken teenagers and some of the Amerind rivalry in “Maker of Universes” and “The Lavalite World”. Language focuses on throat-sung vowels (often preceded by nasal phonemes) with some faucalized/hollow/yawny vowels and a few strident overtone vowels.
> 
> 2 Boar: hunting boar is only dangerous if you fight fair; trapping's safer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70SsGynRZd4&list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPZjyGGlpnZzCvvsOH0-tlgA&index=25
> 
> 3 Game: see “APPENDIX C: Tails's and Ruru's game” for liùznmōn rules.
> 
> 4 Honey badger: documented cases exist of cooperative zoo-escapes to pick fights with lions.
> 
> 5 Approx. “Mathematical thought from ancient through modern times” (Kline, 1972).
> 
> 6 Yule: in Light World it's the day of winter solstice itself. Nayrufest begins a week before the winter solstice and ends a week after it. The three holy days of Nayru are the solstice and the single day each immediately before and after it, the middle being the fertility day. Yule also holds significance for the star system of Sarasaland and the Mushroom Kingdom, though that's complicated with epicycles of the shifting thirteenth constellation, but essentially centers on four houses balancing the forces, with each year being given a dominant house and the rest sharing two sets each of six permutations spread across the warm months and the cold months.
> 
> 7 Mount Dagurashibanipal: rumors abound of strange creatures and people all around the area; some claim that the entire region is haunted, others state outright that it's a weak point between worlds.
> 
> 8 Squirrel: they hunted down some hibernating squirrels' holes, but trapping could have been an (unlikely) option.
> 
> 9 Schöndunkelundtief Forest: Grimm's fairy tales, Mirkwood of “The Hobbit”, Bloomenveld of “Child of Fortune”, and the Eddingses' Nyissa / haunted Marag city / lost Erat / Tolnedran Dryads, in an area where the trees are the size of mountains.
> 
> 10 Trapping: extends to trapping fish in a pit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n95QvoM2DA&list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPZjyGGlpnZzCvvsOH0-tlgA&t=2s&index=32
> 
> 11 Chili: traditionally doesn't use beans or tomatoes; Sonic is open to any variant, but partial to adding both, particularly with a dry cheese.
> 
> 12 Badders: badger-people of Gamma World (1e), tweaked here and there with details from at least the first few editions (and some other species there), and affected by cinnabryl and vermeil (AD&D 2e, Red Steel).
> 
> 13 Cacti: Intelligent Cacti live solitary lives, rarely leaving the Eastern plains and steppes, ranging farther into the northern regions of the Golden Plains of Rygar than elsewhere. Within their environs, they wander as randomly as cats, staying near home or going far and wide on a drunkard's walk. They don't have much use for civilization, but don't shun it either. Occasionally they'll hire themselves out for various tasks (living some fantasy in their minds [secret agent or flying ace] while on the job), using their earnings for sombreros and kilts or coral castles, since they've no need for anything not provided by weather. Psionic ability to hover three feet up (controlled wingless flight, typical medium-creature speeds), can burrow downward through sand / dirt in order to bury themselves against threats, with a limited ability to move around therein (~1/10 speed).
> 
> 14 Snake: good source of protein, simple trap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bys2xcKJ9g0&list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPZjyGGlpnZzCvvsOH0-tlgA&t=1s&index=27
> 
> 15 Bag-o'-doo: concertina-like device with bagpipe-drones sticking out of it. Like a pipe organ, each drone puts forth a different pitch; unlike a pipe organ, the tones are those of a didgeridoo.
> 
> 16 Lyrechord: instrument arranged so that half of the strings are to be plucked as a lyre, with the counterpart strings being hammered harpsichord-like.
> 
> 17 Clean water: This method (and a number of related survival skills) is described in “Sonic's Redemption” and demonstrated (along with a number of related survival skills) in https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPZjyGGlpnZzCvvsOH0-tlgA
> 
> 18 Mount Ouroboros: It stands 84,480 feet tall (16 mi, 25.6 km). At a mean average angle of repose of 40°, its base is 38.13 miles (61.013 km) in diameter, giving it a footprint of 4,568.35(+) square miles (11,831.35(+) sq km) and a surface area of 9,522.53(+) square miles (24,663.24(+) sq km). Along parts of Mt Ouroboros, and to the west of it, lie the Wamphyri kingdoms.


	3. Pills and Swills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diving deep into the underbelly of Freeport, Zelda shows a surprising boldness; our happy couple manage some time together in warm-fuzzy environs; cresting the upper levels of Freeport society, Peach finds scum rising to the top.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **N.B.:** This chapter's footnote section is crammed, so I lack sufficient characters to even link back out to the main text, much less space for anchors in from the text, so you'll have to scroll back and forth or wait 'til you get to the bottom. Sorry about that! 😔
> 
> For the accompanying playlist / soundtrack, please see:  
>  ▐► <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPYG6DgnCJHFlFe-u_MuZiew>
> 
> Foodies: yes, there are recipes available for a good number of the foods mentioned herein. You can find them in "Appendix F: Recipes" (and some few in the commentary / annotation) of the .pdf of "Seize the Deity" at  
>  ▐► <https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BG7P_sVezz8Dn5b8js_34yeAjSBhfN0v>
> 
> ▼ Begin alpha ▼  
>  This chapter is unfinished as yet, and so there are portions that break the usual narrative flow, being outlined rather than fully fleshed out. Please forgive these, as I thought that it might be better to at least present them as-is than to make readers wait until I finally clean it up entirely.  
>  ▲ End alpha ▲
> 
> ▐► **For notes on how to change fonts and font colors and so forth, please see** [Fonts, and colors, and work skins, oh my!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28934610)
> 
>   
> 
> 
> * * *

As they crested the hill, cicadas trilling all around them, the sea came into view, its low susurrus just audible in the distance, punctuated by the odd boomer and screaming gulls and kites. It shimmered an impossible, brilliant azure, Freeport hugging the hills around it. The crest of Mount Ouroboros was still visible far to the north, a permanent storm front churning in the föhn wind to its east, a river flowing past its west side and emptying here into the bay. Locks lay along its banks, controlling flow to and from the fisheries farther afield. Rich pasture lands rolled through the low hills surrounding the bay, though not to any great distance. Mimosas and dogwoods dotted the land, white powder beaches rolling to the water, clusters of pampas grass speckling the whole between tufts of reeds and gamboling flings of sandpipers. The bay itself was alive with ships and fishery caissons, the scent of salt water and tar threading through it all.

Nearer to hand, verandas encircled the adobe structures that basked in the low-lying sunlight, their pastel shades preventing the reflection blinding the party. Their rooves were mostly multi-tiered, such that the lower roof remained cool to the occupants below, with the upper roof covered with trellis-work for grape vines and olive trees surrounding double-walled flumes that drew hot air upward from within while cooling the air drawn down through their cores and condensing potable water along their smooth axially-corrugated inner walls in the process. Shōji opened onto balconies and mezzanines, many of the richer buildings offering shaded pools and fountains thereon, with private atria at their cores. Beehives dotted a few of the rooftops, and some of the larger structures sported thin vertical-spiral-ribbon wind turbines powering either local-use electrical grids or mechanical outputs for the less well to do concerns. At the mouth of the bay, far from the river, stood solar water distilleries; less effort being put forth for passive production than by pumping it the whole distance.

Early though it was in the season, flowers of all kinds already colored the roadside below, a caravan of meat, eggs, and beast-labor ostrdactyls wending its way from the north, with their land lampreys, grue **1** , and more exotic creatures subdued within cargo vessels, all raising a slow cloud of dust in its miles-long wake.

Months ago, they had set out on this journey. Winter had since come and gone.

Turning to Sonic, Zelda looked over to Epona and jerked her chin up, “Ye'll see her back tae the tree-hugger, then, yeah?”

He nodded once, and stared off into the distance.

“Well. This sucks royal ass,” he said finally.

“Aye,” agreed Zelda, “and in no good way.”

He could see Peach off to the side, squinting thoughtfully, concentrating on something and making “O” shapes with her mouth as if sucking on a lemon, her arms still down, but her hands and shoulders subtly signaling a parting motion. _Apparently my comment caught 'er attention, or more likely Z's two-edged reply did. Yeah, y'can almost_ see _the freakin' hamster racin' along in its wheel..._ A smile passed across his face briefly. _This girl's all ears, an' I'm pretty damn' sure she's got some surprises fer Z either way._

“Well, smoke me a kipper, I'll be back fer breakfast,” he said as he and Zelda performed a complicated ritual, their handshake becoming a handclasp by the thumbs, pulling away with a hooking of their fingers only to fist bump and end with a snap from each.

As he turned away, he nodded to Peach “Watch yer ass, P, an' stay frosty. An' remember: be good; an' if ya can't be good, be careful – an' if ya can't be careful...” he glanced over to Zelda for a moment, then back to Peach, “name it after me,” he finished with a tilt of his jaw.

Zelda rolled her eyes.

Peach smiled, then nodded and hugged him. They had had a wonderfully filling dinner the previous evening – Sonic having insisted on taking advantage of the local region's wide variety of foods, pulling out all stops to serve up vichyssoise gratiné, ratatouille niçoise, paella, and calamari – begun the morning with a simple oatmeal, cornbread, and the plentiful leftovers from dinner, and all had said their goodbyes earlier that afternoon, but Sonic had accompanied them this last little leg, just because.

He did a little sidestep, followed by some soft-shoe, as he began to sing on his way back to camp.

“ _Somewhere beyond the sea,_  
_somewhere waitin' fer me,_  
_my lover stands_  
_on golden sands_  
_an' watches the ships_  
_that go sailin'..._ ”

Zelda returned to the persona and speech that she'd adopted several days ago, a rough, brash voice with closed and rounded vowels, a cadence of a few beats' length and a rising lilt.

“Remember, Princess,” admonished Zelda, “it's Tetra no'. Jus' Tetra.”

Freeport. Not exactly a neutral city-state so much as completely unwanted by any other power bloc. Its sole claim to freedom rested in the virtue of it lying at the ass end of nowhere, holding no strategic value whatsoever to anyone, and being of insufficient logistical value to sustain more than itself. Taking it would be a distinct challenge far outweighed by the cost, due to the moors and bayous wreathing the area, the volcanic shoals and narrow channels opening onto the sea, and the coral reefs attending it all. The bayous' sprawling alligator and hypnotoad **2** farms supplemented their food supply well, but served another purpose as an additional layer of security. Even the open waters presented some issues with man-o'-wars and highly aggressive king crabs; innumerable small islands made the already risky wind and water currents all the more treacherous.

Pirates, traders, the helpless and homeless. Nobody came here, save only that they had no other place to turn.

Every power kept spies stationed here of course, to spy upon one another, but the spies were only those too inept to station elsewhere, yet too connected to simply be rid of. They spent their time buying one another drinks and trading gossip to pass on to their superiors. They sent in their reports, and someone filed them away unread. It was a milk run.

Tetra and Peach came to the city wall along a deserted road. A bored toll gate guard glanced up in surprise.

“You wot?!? Price is too 'igh.”

“Lady, they don't consult me about policy, I just take the fare,” he considered, “Maybe you could leave the doxy here, and come back in an hour. Your call.”

Tetra's eyes steeled.

“You won't hurt me, my friend,” the guard said, “it's Tuesday, yes?”

Not wishing to be distracted, but thrown off by this, Tetra asked him “Tuesday?”

“Yeah,” he replied, “It's a metaphysical narrative imperative: nothing ever happens on Tuesdays. If something actually did manage to happen on a Tuesday, it still wouldn't happen. It's an ontological impossibility. Some would even say teleologically prohibited, but that's going a bit too far, I think. Besides, it's sunset. Anything happening in the middle of an otherwise lazy afternoon right as sunset begins to set in would just beggar the imagination – it's almost too obvious to be allowed even if it weren't Tuesday.”

Tetra looked at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he'd meant all of that, or were simply feeble minded.

“Look. Today is Tuesday. It could have happened last night 'til maybe nine or ten P.M., and it could still happen tomorrow morning as early as maybe an hour or so before sunrise, but not tonight. It's Tuesday. Queuey Dee,” he added.

“Q.E.D.?” Tetra prompted.

“Precisely!”

Leaning forward, Peach said “We need to get in, right? I'll be alright. Trust me.”

Tetra left alone, thoughts bouncing around just beneath conscious level, her emotions a tumult.

An hour later, the sun long gone and without even the moon for company, Tetra returned. She didn't want to move, to breathe, to even exist. Her bones felt leaden and her muscles ached, she was shaking some, but this went unnoticed, her thoughts a torpid cottony mess. She felt something molten thrashing slowly within her. _Níðhöggr and Jǫrmungandr._ Her eyes held rigid as she stared at nothing, infinitely far away.

She could hear voices coming from within, indistinct laughter.

She closed her eyes and waited.

Ten minutes passed before the door opened, and Peach came out. “...I'm sure that she'll love it. Give my best to your family, and I hope that things work out with your grandmother's gout. Oh – and thanks for teaching me how to play Cripple Mister Onion and both versions of Thud!”

Tetra looked up from where she had slid down along the wall, unaware of the world around her. Her heartbeat quickened, and she felt as if she were made of shards of eggshell held together loosely by bits of string and tape.

“Princess?” her voice came out in a croak, a noise forcing itself out of a forgotten organ, barely loud enough to hear herself. Peach turned and rushed to her, her eyes wide with fear for what she saw in Tetra's visage.

“Oh my Stars – how long have you been here? What happened to you?”

She knelt next to Tetra, gently bringing her into an embrace, rocking her slowly.

“I'm fuyn,” Tetra replied woodenly, “we ha' tae ge' movin' no'.”

Peach held Tetra's face in her hands, looking deep into her eyes, far past the surface.

“You most certainly are not ' _fine_ ,' Zelda.”

“Tetra,” Zelda replied, her voice hollow, “and it doesn' ma'er. We ha' tae keep goin',” drawing herself up and standing away from Peach. She drew her hand across her face roughly and walked stiffly through the city gate, not sparing a backward glance to ensure that Peach was following.

Where Zelda moved almost sinuously, Tetra strode. Crowds found other places to be.

Peach bumped into someone and pardoned herself.

Tetra grabbed someone else entirely, handed Peach's property back to her, then stared at a third person leaning against a building as she tossed away the offender.

“Nex' lesson, Princess,” Tetra said, “when some'in' happ'ens, loo' fore wha's raly goan on.”

Where Zelda stalked, Tetra's gait rolled with a bold, quiet menace sounding in her steps. No strut, this was a commanding presence. Without swagger, it stood as a definite understated threat in every move, announcing to all that she very, very present.

Even so, a pack of feral dogs soon caught their non-local scent and mistook them as viable targets. Neither found the pack threatening, simply squaring off and going cold, waves of lethal intent clear to any with eyes to see. At this, the pack in general, and notably the alpha in particular, found better places to be.

Farther into the city, Tetra steered them to a bodega, leaving soon thereafter with a few bottles of beer, then onward to a seedy looking hotel not far beyond. Their garb was a little better kept than that of the people lounging around in the lobby, but not so much as to draw attention beyond a once-over.

Renting a room for the night, she led Peach up the drab and poorly maintained stairs, passing only one person on the way, and he was passed out across a blanket on the landing.

After securing the door and giving the room a cursory sweep, she set to work soaking Peach's hair with beer, not taking much care to avoid spills to their clothing, and again after it had had time to dry, leaving Peach to drink what hadn't been used. In the interim, she unpacked an outfit of piratical cut, changing into it as they discussed the evening's plan.

They were to make their way to an establishment by the name of The Flock of Geese, there to make contact with an underground operative. Peach found this a little nervous-making and a little exciting, her endearing reaction giving Tetra cause to smile.

Before leaving, Tetra mumbled a few words that Peach couldn't make out, her hands and fingers dancing a short pattern in the air. As Peach watched, Tetra's appearance changed in response to this glamour, subtle things alone, but each contributing to a strikingly different affect. She now stood shorter, a little burly-seeming, with her skin lightening to a medium tone of mahogany. Peach's eyes widened at this as she bit back her questions.

Removing the chair from the door and leaving by way of the window, they navigated the alleys toward their assignation.

A dive bar just off of the docks. The painted sign hanging overhead depicted what might resemble a flock of geese, if one were half-drunken and squinted in poor light. Tetra jerked her chin upward in recognition to the bouncer outside who rested on a stool beside of the door – not from personal recognition, but rather out of recognition of kind – clasping hands around the thumbs for a shoulder bump, then asking directions to The Gull and Fleece. Glancing around causally for any observers, he nodded them on and discreetly pocketed a fifty rupee piece as they entered.

As he and Tetra made their exchange, Peach's thoughts wandered to the pub sign's funny-looking picture and how it could have been a flock of geese or a gull and fleece, or even golden fleece alone. Adding to this, the motif of geese, seagulls, and yellow wool was painted in such an eye-bending way as to somehow evoke the thought of naked women and writhing bodies.

Noise, crowd, smells, darkness. The floor was covered with soft, dusty stuff interspersed with bits of something slightly crunchy, slightly giving – maybe sawdust and wood shavings, or peanut shells... possibly all of the above.

A few paces in was a large cage. Two women were in it, dancing languidly. Peach wasn't entirely sure that it was dancing, since it seemed to involve a clear oil. One of them was a young Zora, a fish-like amphibious species, her face painted inexpertly, her dancing awkward; the other was... not a Zora. Older, clearly bored and disinterested, her dancing more practiced, but halfhearted and rote. Her light leaf-green skin was a good match for the Zora's pale aquamarine.

“Oi! Twi'lek!” Tetra called out. The not-a-Zora danced toward her, a pair of thick tentacle-things dangling from her skull like hair braids, swaying in pace to her motions.

“That Zora, she's a young 'un, eh? Very pre'y, too...”

The Twi'lek just stared through Tetra, moving her hands over herself.

“Young as 'at an' so pre'y tae boot. Shame she'll likely end up jus' ano'er bloodstain in an alley 'fore long.”

The Twi'lek shrugged, the Zora's fate being of no interest to her.

Tetra reached into her coin purse. The Twi'lek's gaze sharpened, focusing on Tetra, her movements becoming far more fluid, tilting her hips toward Tetra, her lips pursed.

“It's quie' in 'ere, eh? Wha' say we 'ave us a show?” Tetra dropped a five rupee piece into her palm. The Twi'lek looked on, listening.

“Anyplace else, any o'er ci'y, yore young friend 'ould be jailbai' an' then some, hey?” The Twi'lek made a moue of irritated concurrence.

“I' occurs tae me tha' as young as she mus' be, I don' imagine tha' her fuyn arse has e'er known the touch o' another...” Tetra dropped another five rupee piece into her palm, winking at the Twi'lek. Ten rupees. The Twi'lek was listening more intently.

“So do me a favor,” twenty rupees, “an' see tha' she remembers me,” thirty rupees, “the nex' time she takes a crap!” Forty rupees. She now had the Twi'lek's undivided attention.

Tetra handed the money to the Twi'lek, who smiled and nodded reassuringly as she palmed it all surreptitiously.

“An' o' course, don't ge' too enthusiasti'. We wouldn' wan' yer dear, beau'iful young frien' tae su'enly seek other employmen' opp'rtuni'ies a' a more modest establishment, or up an' quit tae go runnin' away home tae mommy, now would we?”

The Twi'lek made the connection. Even as she shook her head in exaggerated agreement, she reached for a towel and wiped her hand dry.

“Be sure tae take yore tuym, hon'. Be inven'ive. We wan' the crowd tae ge' me money's worth, don' we?”

Money? More than she made from a decent night or two. She had no idea who this fool was, but for that much money, she didn't care. Besides, she was going to enjoy bringing this Zora down a few notches, and maybe the girl would get out of the business and out of her way when she was through with her.

The Twi'lek sashayed over to the Zora, grabbed her neck, bent her over, and held her down. The Zora's face took on a look of bewilderment.

Peach couldn't see what happened next, since she was now following Tetra farther into the room, and a crowd was gathering around the cage. A low roaring cheer came from behind them, drowning out any further noise.

The tables and chairs were now sparsely occupied.

Over the crowd's noise behind her, Peach could just make out the song being played.

“ _Now I can't see,_  
_I just stare;_  
_I... I'm still alive,_  
_hey I,_  
_but I'm still alive..._ ”

Tetra chose a small group of tables off to the side, in a semi-private enclosure. One of the tables had three dancers sitting at it. They wore nearly nothing and still Peach couldn't identify which species any of them were.

One of dancers caught her eye; short horns coming out of her head just above her temples, her skin almost shimmering between a deep golden and a brick red, a sheen around her as if coated with sweat or oil, a set of loreal pits between her eyes' inner corners and her nostrils and another below her eyes' outer corners, those eyes pulling Peach in with a promise of ineluctable delights made all the more intriguing by her pupils constantly changing their shape; her irises were mesmerizing, iridescent, and while she couldn't quite see which colors were there or the changes themselves as they happened, the self-referential teased Peach's thoughts, insinuating itself beneath a conscious level, tickling something, distracting... To be sure, her other assets were equally impossible to deny, drawing the eye thither. Her motions were sinuous, almost designed to entice, and something about the way that her forked black tongue flickered in particular... There was something in the air coming off of the horned girl, something earthy but sweet and thick like a musky perfume, with a complicated smoky undercurrent of truffles, though neither actually perfume nor cloying in its presence; it pulled at Peach, weighed at her eyelids while speeding her pulse, tugging at the back of her skull, her body responding to it on multiple levels.

At this point, Peach could still hear the band playing, but was too overwhelmed with sensations to pay it much attention.

“ _...honey came in and she caught me red-handed_  
_creeping with the girl next door,_  
_picture this we were both butt naked,_  
_banging on the bathroom floor..._ ”

Peach turned to Tetra quickly and asked if they could dance, pulling at her hand, away from the dancers, a note of near-desperation in her voice.

“Gi' 'er a dance,” Tetra said, dropping twenty rupees onto the table, “an' see tha' it's a good one, tha' she _really_ does enjoy 'erself, _immensely_ – jus' _no' qui'_ comple'ly,” her eyes carefully holding the dancers' eyes firmly for a second or two each, as forty more rupees joined the first twenty.

Turning to Peach, Tetra replied loudly, “Oh, an' we'll be dancin' tonigh' ool'righ' darlin', bu' th' only dance ahm intereste' in is th' pelvic thrust!” She burrowed her face into Peach's cleavage, humming loudly as she shook her head vigorously back and forth, then headed to the bar.

Peach, her head still spinning from Zelda's attentions, paid little heed as the dancers climbed over her, one writhing in her lap, another dancing behind her and running her hands over Peach's hair and bust, the third putting on an extremely detailed and interactive show for her. For most of a night's pay each, and all for just a single dance, the dancers put forth their best efforts, their bodies made lithe by Tetra's inducement. Peach found herself caught up in it all, returning the dancers' slow kisses and most intimate caresses, writhing with them ever so slightly as their gentle probing and ministrations left nothing unattended. Soon enough though, she observed the men's great interest in them and asked the dancers in a distracted manner how they managed that and how they would go about capturing a woman's interest. The intriguing horned one with her tongue wrapped around Peach's ear paused to whisper her answer, then nibbled her earlobe as she pressed herself to Peach's side, her heat and moisture pressing into the back of Peach's hand as she slid one of her own hands between Peach's thighs, the other manipulating pressure points first beneath her armpit and then up her spine to the base of her skull, eliciting a gasp from Peach as she lost herself in the moment, heat and pressure building within her. Every point that the horned girl had so far touched burned still with a need as if that touch remained.

Tetra made a show of checking her coin purses and pockets, her look becoming that of one who is soon to be completely out of money.

“Pisser?” she called out through the row of stools to the bartender. He jerked his head back and to the left.

She headed to the back, skipping the stalls and checking the door and the alleyway behind it. Satisfied, she returned to the bar.

Tetra announced loudly to the drunks at the bar “Foon' tha' one purloinin' a turnip o' all things! I don' need tae tell ye where she 'ad i' 'id! A marquise e'en, and ha' ye e'er set your eyes 'pon a fuyner pair o' teats? She could feed a small tone wi' those! Barkeep, la'y look ha' smiled doan on me this day – a jug o' yore fuynest grogged lager!” pantomiming an exaggerated negative and stage-whispering loudly “ _'o'se ale!_ ”

The bartender glanced over to Peach, still buried in writhing dancers, “Really believe she's a marquise?” he asked.

Tetra roared with laughter, “Baroness more like, an' tha' only jus' maybe. Methinks she's ne'er so much as seen a marquise's chambermaid, but I'll believe 'er if she say's she's bloody Warbotdorf hi'self – long as she gives good 'ead! I can' wai' tae see if the cuffs match the collar! Ahh, and she's a juicy one, eh? Arroz con gandules ne'er missed 'er!” She laughed again.

Tetra caught Peach's eye and blew her a kiss, “I'n' tha' righ', Squishy-poos?” Tetra called out, and laughed hardily.

She returned to her over-loud conversation with the bartender, “A turnip, if ye c'n believe i'. A turnip! I mean, 'o purloins a turnip?!?”

A man sidled up next to Tetra carefully. Brown fedora, bushy off-black eyebrows, two-day-old five o'clock shadow, mustard-yellow tweed jacket with broad lapels that managed to give the impression of an ill-fitting trenchcoat, red shirt with large white hibiscus print, braided bolo tied near the collar with a cheap clasp, long off-lime shorts, socks and sandals, and something the quality of which fell short of cheap cologne and clashed with his even cheaper cigar. He put Tetra in mind of a used-car race bookie down on his luck.

The bartender suddenly remembered some mugs at the other end of the bar.

“Waiting for someone,” the man said, snapping his fingers a few times, “Godot innit?”

“Nobo'y wai's for Godot,” she replied.

Rallying, he suggested “Maybe he should wait for them.”

“ 'e should ha' wai'ed yesterday.”

“Maybe he'll wait tomorrow.”

“Oh, aye,” she replied derisively, then observed “sounds like a real God-in-potty.”

Contact established, signs and countersigns exchanged.

The man in tweed introduced himself, pitching it just loud enough for others to overhear, but not quite so loud as to reach the tables. “Party? Say no more, madam, say no more! Gordon Shumway – everybody just calls me Mister Tweed – at your service, purveyor of fine goods to enhance your experience with the lady.”

Tetra glanced toward Peach, who was by then chatting with the dancers.

“Ah, well no'. A small poin' o' order. I migh' no' be qui' as flush wi' funds as I made ou' tae be. In actu'l poin' o' fac', this magnificen' celebration rep'resents the las' o' me pe'y cash.”

The several other listeners lost interest entirely.

Mister Tweed gave her a sidelong glance and said “No problem, perhaps we can come to some alternative method of payment,” as he steepled his fingers and nodded his head upward, casting his eyes toward Peach.

As they went upstairs, ale forgotten on the table with the dancers, Peach heard the band still, the song fading.

“ _Ooh, I want you to stay;_  
_ooh, I want you today;_  
_I'm ready for love,_  
_oh baby, I'm ready for love;_  
_ready for love,_  
_oh baby, I'm ready for love..._ ”

In a rather spare room in the building next door to the Flock of Geese, adjoined by a concealed hallway, Tetra discussed business with Mister Tweed revolving around finances, the logistics of a pirate ship named _Nazgûl_ , and the latest movements of Warbotdorf's lieutenants.

As Tetra headed to the toilet, Peach asked Mr. Tweed about his “enhancements” – she'd heard at least that much – and if there were someplace to get something to eat.

▼ Begin alpha ▼

He says that he'll have the kitchen send something up, and that he has everything under the sun, and a few things that aren't. Hells, he even has some bridesbane with him right now. What's her pleasure?

She says bridesbane.

He asks if she's familiar with it.

She runs over it in her mind: an analgesic and mild soporific with some euphoric effects. She assures him that she is.

He gives her a tiny vial with thirty or so granules in it, glances at her as if calculating, and says that one or two at a time should be enough, three at the most, and she'll be in paradise.

She nods and asks how much she owes him.

He waves a hand and says to forget about it, it's cheap as hell to make and can easily be thrown into the bookkeeping under ship's operations. She guesses that the little jar would run perhaps three mushroom coins or less at a chemist's shop, so gives in.

Tetra comes back, sees Mr. Tweed out. He thanks her for her business and calls out to enjoy their bridesbane, then has the passing chambermaid go for the ladies' dinner.

A snatch of music wended its way through their doorway.

▲ End alpha ▲

“ _Mystery surrounds me, and I wonder where I'm going;_  
_there's a cloud above me and it seems to hide the way._  
_I'm going straight ahead, 'cause it's the only way I know;_  
_I want to leave the past, and live just for today._

 _Now then – tell me baby, do you need my love?_  
_Tell me baby, are you thinking of me?_  
_Tell me baby, what it is you need,_  
_what kind of satisfaction guaranteed?..._ ”

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Dinner arrives. Curried döner kebabs with chorizo and a gallon of cold Guinness. Tetra hits on the serving wench, then pulls at the girl's neckline and peers down her shirt. The wench scurries off rapidly and Tetra gives her a sound slap to her ass on the way out, leering with great appreciation at the ripple that this produces.

P drops four granules into Tetra's drink, and accidentally makes it six, but that should present no problems. She offers it to Tetra, along with a back rub.

▲ End alpha ▲

Blackness.

Sudden crystal clear consciousness.

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Zelda's vision adjusts. “What... are you wearing? Usamimi?”

P: Stuff in dresser was all that they had, and you said that it would like to see me in it.

Faded rich purple with emerald piping and tacky red-and-gold tassels over her nipples and pink bunny ears sprouting from her hair. There was even a white puffball of a tail. She actually managed to wear it with simple elegance.

It was obvious that she'd been crying. Her eyes were swollen and bloodshot, her face puffy. Now, only relief flooded her expression.

Z: “I feel as if a two ton leprechaun were tap dancing on the bridge of my nose...”

Stretch. Gasp. Quiver.

P: Explains about the previous night, with the bridesbane. Kept making weird noises, touching and poking herself all over. Checked her fever many times; last check woke her, Z dragged P's hand into her crotch, squeezed legs together really tight and kept it there for a few minutes while you moved around. Slippery, thought wet bed a bit but it was just like her scent, sweet with a hint of cinnamon, and _really slippery_.

Zelda turns her head sharply, looking intently at Peach: “You can smell that?” After a moment of thought, “Wait, you... _tasted_ it?”

P: (Nods) Uh-huh, you've always smelled like that. But then you didn't wake up through most of the fever, and then collapsed so deeply after the one time that you did come to, and I was afraid that I had killed you, and you just hadn't died yet, and... and... (tears form and she sniffles)

Z: you said that you got the bridesbane from Mister Tweed.

P: nods again and sniffles miserably.

Z: Peach,

P: eyes shoot wide, everything else in the world forgotten.

Z: the stuff that he sells is street-grade material, not the kiddie-aspirin that you're familiar with. This stuff would knock a donkey on its ass, no pun intended. It's generally used by surgeons, truly desperate housewives, rapists, and inventive burglars – and idiots at parties. The exact effects vary some, but at this concentration, it heightens the senses to incredible levels, stimulates the libido, causes certain cravings, mostly a need to satisfy others' wants, induces a degree of empathic contact, usually amps up their energy levels for several hours, suppresses the frontal cortex severely and releasing any inhibition, and saps individual will, making the person highly suggestible. Side effect is pretty much total amnesia. Small amounts taken every few weeks mean nothing; larger doses any more often, and it's pretty addictive. You couldn't have known.

...and from that, I'd say that it might cause severe rambling – you're sure you've never used it yourself?

P: that's the first time that you've called me by name!

Z: (smiles) Aye, and I suppose it is, Princess, but _that's_ what you took away from what I said just now?

P just sits there glowing happily.

Z: Well, at least it's over and done with, mostly.

P: glances around the room, avoiding the statement.

Z fixes her gaze on P. “So. How much of this stuff did you get?”

P: Not much, really. Maybe a few dozen grains.

Z: A few... dozen?

P nods.

Z mouth gapes: Fuck me! That's worth at least three hundred, maybe four hundred fifty rupees minimum, even here.

P confused: No, not more than a few rupees at best.

Z: Oh honey, no. (smiles at P's innocence) Not this stuff.

P: But he said that it was so inexpensive to manufacture!

Z: People lie, but in this case he wasn't lying. It's cheap to make, but it sells at a very dear price. Not so much from rarity, or even supply-control greed in the face of high volume, as strong demand from those who seek it.

P: “Maybe if I danced for you again later, you might feel better? My butt's still really, really sore right now, but you really liked it a lot, so m-maybe I could do that again, and you'd be distracted by it, and then maybe you'd feel better. You could even hold on some more that same way all you want, to make sure that I don't fall. Or I could even do it right now, if you think that it might make you feel any better.”

Z: “We danced last night?”

P: “No. You asked me to dance for you. You called it exotic. I wriggled around above you and tried not to smother you. You held onto my waist and hips and legs to make sure that I wouldn't fall off, and then you said that you wanted a six-pack, but you didn't get anything to drink, you just moved your hand down a bit... behind me... and got a better hold of me instead – a... much... better hold – a-and I danced for you a bit more, and then you said that you wanted a twelve pack, but you still didn't get anything to drink, you just... moved your other hand around me and... umm... got an _even better_ hold... and so I just danced for you for another half hour or so, and that's why my butt still hurts so much right now.”

“You're sweet, but perhaps another time.”

Peach wrings her hands.

“O.K., I get it. I turned into the eat-me-beat-me girl – or rather, I used you as my own little personal-eat-me-beat-me girl.”

“You're not angry?”

“Me? No. It's safe to say that I'm still suffering the effects of last night. I feel as if I'm floating, with a content disposition toward everything, and I'm _really_ fucking horn– never mind that. Look, you made an honest mistake. I forgive you. Just never again drug me without permission, unless there's a medical necessity, and we'll be fine.

“Besides, from the sound of it, I'm the one who should be apologizing to you. I defiled you. I'm sorry – I don't feel sorry right now, but I certainly will once this wears off.”

“We're O.K.?”

“We're more than O.K., sweetie,” Zelda tells her.

P squeals, pounces on Z.

Z screams and spasms, clawing her nails down P's back. Her nails cause P to arch her back, her body moving against Z in turn, inducing a vicious cycle.

Z: Don't move. Especially your leg. Don't even breathe for a few minutes, either. I'm not kidding. Those tassels of yours are right on my... Look, I'm still a bit sensitive from last night, and even their tiniest movements are really hard to ignore. Just don't do anything for a while. Maybe an hour. Maybe not 'til tomorrow. That would be bad. Good. _Very_ good – oh sweet Nayru, it would be fucking phenomenal – but very bad.

P: Did I hurt you?

Z: chokes down laugh, spasms some more. Lets out a staccato “Ga-aa-ah...!”

Z: No. By all of the Gods and every sage, no! Very much the opposite. The leprechaun is gone. Now please stop moving.

P: Which leg?

Z: the one in the middle. Please. Rest now; be still, unless you want the world's biggest, darkest hickey.

P: Got it. What's a hickey?

Z: Laughs, spasms strongly, biting P's shoulder hard enough that she drew blood and digging her nails deep into P's back, P arching back again, starting the whole cycle anew.

▲ End alpha ▲

Zelda inspected Peach's face, traced her tears, wiped away the snot. “You're still here, after all of that, and you were worried for me.”

She brushed her fingers over Peach's lips. Warmth stirred within Peach's loins. As Zelda's fingers traced their way down Peach's neck, a shiver ran down her spine.

_All of these years in darkness, and this girl's light makes them fall away so causally and she doesn't even know it._

Peach bit her lip. “You said that this version of bridesbane causes some kind of empathic contact and a need to make other people happy, right? So, what happened?”

Zelda nodded. “I've been thinking the same thing. My best guess is that I felt your need to make me happy, and it all just amplified, like a feedback loop. I used you to satisfy myself. I'm sorry.”

“Don't be,” Peach said, “I just want to make you happy.”

Zelda gazed at Peach, for once not torn by other thoughts.

▼ Begin alpha ▼

P: What does ' _chulita_ ' mean?

Z: Did I say ' _chulita_ ' or ' _chuleta_ '?

<P unsure of which>

Z: well, in either case... it's a term of endearment.

P: meaning?

Z sighs: it expresses appreciation of a woman's soft curviness, the size and shape of her body, her softness, and... it implies... a certain degree of attraction... and... some affection toward her.

P: affection?

Z looks elsewhere.

P: What about ' _chupame_ '?

Z: “Not the time for language lessons,” she says hurriedly.

P is quiet for a bit.

▲ End alpha ▲

“One last question. What did you mean when you said ' _Ich bin he_ _i_ _ß; fick mich!_ ' and then something about how you ' _met this embarrassed little marooned monkey ape, wee busy mountaineer_ '?”

“Embarrassed little... wait – ' _Mes_ _Déesses_ _, embrasse l'oeil marron de mon cul – et puis baise mon trou noir!_ '?”

“Yes, that was it! You said that, and it sounded kind of like you were pleading, as if you were really desperate for something, and then you mooned me and pointed straight at your–”

“Focus, Princess. We're getting way off topic here.”

Peach squinted one eye and arched her other eyebrow in suspicion, but didn't say anything about it.

“I won't bite, you know.”

“Pity...” Zelda thought aloud, just enough that Peach caught it.

Time passed slowly. Zelda meditated while Peach lay still atop her, just gazing and thinking.

_Just lying here breathing is calming. Sharing our air, our breath. I could do this forever._

_Her eyes are so beautiful. Closed right now, but I can picture them so easily. So deep a violet that you almost lose focus on them, their hint of epicanthic fold surrounding them in a lovely frame._ Her own were a vibrant blue with highlights of copper and emerald, but Zelda's were truly something to behold. _I could stare into them for hours and never notice the time pass by. Her smile too, the way that it comes so freely and so full when she laughs. And the curve of her neck – how my face almost perfectly fits there. And her body's just so svelte; I would so dearly love to run my hands across every inch of her, lick her taut belly, kiss and nibble her all over..._

Nipples. In stark contrast to her own bright pink, Zelda's were large and dark. Large in being both thick and prominent, they were forever hard and made all the more prominent by puffy areolae. The combined effect stood out to such an extent that it was hard not to notice them even under thick clothing, much less pressing against her as they were now. _Her breasts are so small that I could cup them easily – if I_ dared _– and with such a lovely quiver to them, begging to be suckled. Her buttocks likewise so small and firm, with their gentle curve, her cheeks never quite meeting, everything so tantalizingly exposed._ Peach's hands clenched slowly of their own accord, as if to squeeze Zelda's muscular cheeks, and the thought of trying to pry them still farther apart prompted an image to leap to mind unbidden.

 _Her hands. They aren't rough, exactly, just... hard. Tough. Whenever her palms touch me, it feels like the soft texture of suede stiffened to immobility. But her hands are always warm. Gentle. Her arms are so powerful, but they never crush me or hurt me at all, and their stiffness is belied by her smooth, supple skin – not precisely soft, but soft in its own way. It rides her muscles like a velvet coating over granite; not actually all bulging, but so toned and clearly muscular._ Where their bodies met was like night and day. Peach's a milky skin, almost porcelain but for some faint scattering of freckles, where Zelda's was hard to pin down; not quite a light chocolate, but not quite golden either, and with a pale tinge of almost dark olive green to it.

_Her ears are just so cute, too, the way that they slide and curve so gracefully to perfect little points._

_And she always smells so nice, so... perfectly right. Even unbathed for days and drenched in sweat. Especially then. I can just imagine sliding around all over her, her sweat covering me, making us both so slippery... And her armpits are so perfect to nuzzle in and fall asleep to._ Her left armpit was Peach's favorite. Breathing it in lent her wings of eiderdown, carrying her gently to some serene place deep within. Simply thinking of this brought a smile unbidden to her face.

Zelda opened her eyes to find Peach staring into them unaware.

“In a little while I will be sufficiently braced. When I tell you to, you will then leap off of me as if I were ablaze. Do you understand?”

“I understand affection,” Peach replied, smiling softly as she bent her neck slowly downward.

Zelda remained still, disbelieving of Peach's intention, anticipation robbing her of the will to look away.

The kiss was electrifying.

They lingered, time floating inchoate, the room having fallen away.

Peach grinned mischievously and shimmied backward, her thigh pressing down and sliding along Zelda's crotch in the process.

That was no accident.

Zelda was still so lightheaded, swimming from Peach's demeanor, that she was only distantly aware of the tingling release.

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Huge jug of juice – mixed guava, papaya, guanábana, and a little bit of mango – left at door earlier in the morning. Still chilled now.

Z: “I keep waking up naked with no memory of what we've done. This is getting to be a habit around you.”

▲ End alpha ▲

Tetra's ship, _Nazgûl_ , is someplace in the archipelagos. Preparations shouldn't be long, but still two weeks at best.

▼ Begin alpha ▼

P: Dead eight years, you need a vacation, and nobody will recognize you. You've been showing me your world for months now; now let me bring you back to my world, if only briefly on a date.

Z: And you wouldn't be ashamed of being seen in public with me? Embarrassed, mortified – utterly humiliated? Would not your friends find the presence of my uncouth manner unbefitting of their station?

P's face falls, hurting again for Z. The worst of it is that Z asks without rancor, fully resigned to either rejection or being lied to.

P reaches over and takes Z's hand, shaking her head, “Never,” she says, as she looks into Z's eyes.

Z's eyes seem to harden, searching P's face warily, but she accedes.

▲ End alpha ▲

Highstreet ran east and west along the northern crescent-end of the bay, crossing both mouths of the river with broad and ornate marble bridges crowned with ironwork stained glass gaslights that ran continuously through rain or shine. It wasn't so much the individual street that it was named for as an entire district unto itself, though it might have been better named Cherry Street for its ubiquitous trees, while the same could be said of the profusion of poppies and Japanese yews.

Peach took Zelda straight to a salon, under the name of Impa. The cherry trees along their path were just beginning to peak in their bloom; as Zelda marveled at their beauty, she felt a præternatural pull, as if the gentle hint of destiny accepted were on the wind. It was a perfect moment, the perfume of the blossoms in the air as they drifted on the breeze, almost floating in their downward travel. Five centimeters per second. Zelda looked toward Peach just as one perfect blossom landed in her hair. _She's perfect, too._

They walked in, Peach holding Zelda's hand with a proud and content smile.

Zelda now trailed slightly behind, acutely aware of just how publicly Peach was holding her hand, declaring to the world that they were together. The cultural habits were still buried within her, albeit in need of dusting, and she knew that she would likely be able to handle things with decorum, but Peach's clear display of care and attention made her nervous.

_What if this is just a ploy? Nay, she's never used a single ploy the whole time I've known her... she's always been naught but forthright and pellucid._

_Shit – what if this is no ploy then, standing full legitimate in its stead?!? Wait, that would be good though... would it not?_

_Oh, crap, no – what if I fuck it all up? ¡Coño...!_

The maître domo recognized Peach, carefully ignoring their clothing and nigh-palpable stench.

▼ Begin alpha ▼

M: Ahh, princess, we'd heard of your recent troubles with some rebels; so glad to see that you're safe once more.

P: Rebels...? Oh. Yeah, it was horrible – the trauma! I might never recover! Can my, umm... <cough> _niece_ and I get a few Zima-Malibu spritzers – sparkling, if you have it? With raspberries? We're _all schleppy_ right now, and that'd be just _so fabu_.

P-to-Z, low aside: now they'll simply assume that I've been on some runaway vacation with my latest boy toy... which isn't actually as far from the truth as I had intended. That should occupy the rumor mill quite nicely. (Smile and wink.)

M: Charge to House Toadstool?

P: (dismayed brat attitude) Duh! No, wait – House Sarasa. (Smug look on her face)

P-to-Z-w/-M, inspecting nails and pursing lips: That will show Daisy! Oh, and I will be withdrawing two thous... no, four thousand mushroom coins under the same account **3**.

M: Of course.

P-to-Z-w/o-M: My cousin and I use it as a quick and easy way of letting each other know where we are. We just charge things to each other's accounts under our own authority.

Z laughs. Ever wonder why they bother with the coins and don't just call them mushroom stamps and have done with it?

P gives her a look of incomprehension.

Z holds up her hand. Never mind, forget I said anything.

After shopping, hit onsen (deep massage, masseuses' perfume cloying to their noses after so long away in the wilds – masseuses see P's nail-torn back and exchange knowing smirks, Z grows exasperated with her ineffectual masseuse's gentle pawing, and after repeated attempts to obtain a practical result from the eye candy [and two warnings that her hands weren't to stray, lest she lose them], finally lands a gnarly old masseur for deeply-knuckled massage [very old, half-Dwarf with some Human and Orcish features] – lychee mimosas, several baths, mani-pedi, peel), light lunch at an open cafe (bagna càuda with French bread, crab bisque [with shallots, chervil, capers, and floating a teaspoon of ikura], a small shared entrée of paella, a main course of rice with raisins and steamed vegetables and a side of several thin slices of orange brisket, green tea, and a generously apportioned dessert of plátanos maduros), a musical play about cats (Peach cried, Zelda cried, Peach cried even more because of Zelda's crying), dinner in a private room at Les Jardins de la Cuisine Très Haute (relatively small portions, but so many: mixed boršč with feta, risotto e porcini al Parmigiano-Reggiano doppio, salad with various cuts of maguro and goose trimmings, tortellini di gamberi in burro di pomodoro e calamari alla marinara, braised tenderloin with lobster that swam in Roquefort beurre noisette, several slices of duck with a honeyed brown Dijon and artichoke hearts, a fatty chunk of pernil asado, hazelnut-raspberry profiteroles, cappuccino with almond-anisette biscotti, cardamom milk pudding with wintergreen, tea, tiramisù, and an appropriate wine with each dish), carriage ride along High Gardens canal with a small carton of ikayaki and anago to share and box of candied flowers and baklavá for later.

Z: Goddesses, Princess, I'll be working off that dinner for a month. There were more calories in a single dish than I eat in most days!

P: Of course there were; how do you think I maintain my girlish figure? The one that you like so much... (Dips head coquettishly and squeezes elbows together just beneath her cleavage, dimples bursting around her smile.)

Z resists for a moment, then leans in and holds her close, breathing in the scent of her hair as they gaze out across the moonlit flowers and the stars.

Mimosa leaves curl back, promising rain soon to follow. Peach remarks on this, and Zelda raises her brow in agreement and approval of Peach's observation and conclusion.

▲ End alpha ▲

The carriage eventually deposited them at a large, upscale hotel by the name of The Chandler. Zelda looked askance to Peach, who explained that she'd booked ahead from the salon that morning, and had had a word with the coachman before their ride.

The elevator deposited them at the private entrance to a penthouse honeymoon suite.

As Zelda stepped out, she and the two security men tensed at one another, not quite squaring off.

Peach had slight forewarning between Zelda's body language and the air currents carrying a whiff of at least two male Human body scents, hence upon stepping out she immediately put her back mostly to Zelda and dropped somewhat low to the ground, her body relaxed, her left leg leading straight and pointing toward the nearest guard in a fú hǔ bù stance modified for closer quarters than preferred, her left hand forming a middle fore-knuckle variant of a Phoenix Eye fist, her right something between a Snake and a Tiger Claw, almost an Eagle Claw, his clear view of it obfuscated by her left hand's presence and her right hand's sinuous weaving, all the while moving in a slightly drunken manner and focusing her chi. She couldn't tell if he recognized any of the specifics, but she could see his pupils dilate in surprise, recognizing her bearing as royal and her form as professionally trained.

The bellhop walked into this scene and froze.

Zelda lifted the room's keycard slowly.

The guards inclined their heads and resumed their regular positions.

Upon entering in their room, Zelda poured the bellhop a drink and handed him a fifty mushroom coin for his discomfort. After a second drink, he left, and she and Peach swept the perimeter.

“Earlier, in the lobby,” Peach began, “why didn't you react?”

Zelda glanced at her and drew a breath.

“Sometimes it's not about fighting,” she said, “aside from the fact that they were apparently only doing their jobs – which I didn't simply accept as a given – the best fight is the one that you don't have.

“Besides,” she continued after a moment, “had I assumed any stance at all, such as yours for example, they'd have known immediately that I was a threat and responded accordingly. Not posing any apparent threat, or even seeming willing to fight at all, keeps them off balance. You remember what we've taught you, hmm? The SigInt that Sonic never shuts up about, and being a gray man? Fight without fighting, react like water to whatever arises without first becoming anything. Stances are good and have their uses, but mostly when seeking to drive away a minor threat that you don't wish to harm or kill, or if it's some creature that's too unaware or self-centered for a stance to telegraph your intent to it.”

White Zinfandel awaited them.

They bathed, Peach scrubbing Zelda's back, then massaging her. The water was subtly scented, soft with lotions and oils. Candles surrounded them. Zelda had a large snifter of thirty year old blackberry Armagnac with smoky hints of pomegranate, lighting a cigar and sharing it with Peach. Her hands forming a tube, she exhaled as Peach inhaled. This thrilled Peach to no end, breathing in Zelda's breath directly, more intimate than any kiss, bringing an idea of her own to mind. Her eyes glassy, she eased herself onto Zelda's lap, reveling in the sensation of sliding across Zelda's slick body. Locking her limbs around Zelda's torso, she kissed her, sucking the smoke straight from her mouth. Zelda rode this feeling, their tongues soon dancing, a wanton croon coming from Peach.

“Mmm, sloppy kisses... ' _In vino veritas_ ,' indeed...” Zelda murmured.

“Hmm?” Peach asked.

Zelda didn't answer, pulling her back in for more, her arms fitting around Peach's waist as if they'd been built for each other, molding themselves to her curves, her broad hips the perfect size, Peach's breasts squeezed tight against her own. Lowering her head slightly and tilting it, she wrapped her teeth firmly around the side of Peach's throat, exerting just enough pressure to cause Peach to moan. As she held Peach thus, she caught hold of Peach's wrists, pushing them forward, behind Peach's back, scraping her nails lightly along their sensitive inner surfaces.

_Her lower back is so perfect, I could so happily lick it, eat from it... oh, sweet Nayru, that tongue! And her thighs! Her waist and the flair of her hips, so smooth and well-rounded... she truly is as soft and squishy as I said of her at The Gull – mmh, and her lovely golden downy thatch..._

She growled at the song playing softly on the intervision.

“ _The world was on fire and no one could save me but you;_  
_it's strange what desire will make foolish people do;_  
_I'd never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you,_  
_and I'd never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you..._ ”

The tub was large, able to sit six, yet deep as it was, it was still full, the overspill draining at the base of the tub where it met the tile surrounds. This put their heads just above the water level, and with Peach sitting in Zelda's lap, her breasts were floating just beneath Zelda's chin.

“El mundo estaba en llamas, nadie podía salvarme sino tú...” Zelda murmured, breathing it out more as a thick, half-conscious string of syllables from the back of her throat than actual language. Even so, or perhaps because of this, it communicated her focus clearly.

Peach moaned in anticipation at this.

“Es extraño lo que el deseo hará que la gente tonta haga...”

_Nayru, she's so soft and lush._

Zelda lowered her head further and brushed her cheek across Peach's breasts, sending waves of hot chills coursing through Peach's body. She trailed her fingers down Peach's back, tickling her ass as she wandered lower still, eventually teasing her rear opening. Peach arched her back, pressing herself against Zelda's belly, gasping.

“Irie I, man...” Zelda remarked as they dried off. They now stood on a finished softwood floor with tatami laid out in eye-pleasing simplicity, the tatami filling the air with a light, tea-like aroma. Peach blinked and nodded dreamily, her smile growing broader.

The cigar's herbal ingredients were strong, as was the Armagnac, sending Peach's senses reeling even further, and she floated through the next few hours with a smile on her face, giggling at times at nothing but pure joy. Every cell of her body felt relaxed, glowing, warm and content.

Large bowls of strawberries and sugared heavy cream were delivered by room service, along with an array of chocolates and a tray of oysters.

“Oysters?” Zelda asked.

Peach nodded, “I've heard that they're good for... certain things,” she replied as she wrapped her lips around one and sucked the meat out, swallowing it whole.

“Aye... that's more of a guy thing, for cert – but I like them well enough, and I'll still enjoy watching you eat them like that.”

Peach paused, a thoughtful look on her face, “What would make them a girl thing, then?”

Zelda was taken aback. “I've nary given it thought,” she admitted.

“I suppose that if you opened your mouth slightly...” Peach followed suit, “stuck your tongue beneath the oyster and flicked it around a bit... slowly...” Peach continued as instructed, “and pressed it gently between your tongue and lips...” she bobbed her head into it, her eyes intent on Zelda's reactions, “then pulled it out slowly, teasing the meat from its shell,” Zelda watched as Peach held the oyster in her palms, juices running from her lips and chin, down her throat.

“Again, but this time just wrap your lips around the meat itself, and tease it out with them,” Zelda leaned forward, watching.

Peach felt warm all over, a tingling in her groin, and a buzzing happy feeling from Zelda's focused attention. She didn't pick up the next oyster, instead bringing her mouth to the plate and licking the oyster, caressing it with her tongue and lips. Zelda's eyes were fastened on her.

Peach slowly shifted her body around, giving Zelda a good view, then carefully pulling away. She moved her face along the plate of oysters, rubbing her cheek and jaw across them. Kissing one, she lifted it with only her lips.

This performance lasted through the end of the oysters.

Wrapped around each other on the sofa, they watched anime on the intervision for a few hours, the room's stuttering, low-res A.I. named Max – a branch of the hotel's concierge A.I. – homing in on their mood and tastes. He quipped and quibbled, fanning matters occasionally with risqué observations and ribald jokes, a shifting background of varicolored geometric patterns on simple planes precessing at random.

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Peach is surprised to find that she has the munchies.

Zelda talks with Max and places a rush-order for two quarts of pork fried rice, two pizzas.

Z → P: Sicilian or Neapolitan?

P: umm... yes!

Z with heavy-everything

P: and an order of everything else on the side!

Z: …?

M: I'll have them put it into a bowl.

Z: and double-heavy anchovies and make the Sicilian triple-heavy quattro-formaggi, half a dozen cheeseburgers with heavy bacon, fries with crumbled bacon and heavy cheese, cereal with fake syrup no maple, and fried chicken skins. Oh, and some _really massive_ omelettes of whatever you have, slathered in Cholula.

P: Belgian waffles, too?

Z: And some Belgian waffles, tons of margarine and syrup.

P: Maybe some Hunan pepper steak?

Z: You get all of that?

M: Indubitably.

Z: can we get some really thick and strong sweet-and-salty garlic butter, too – maybe a quart or so?

P: and stuffed crust on the Neapolitan!

Z: and it had better be done right; semolina and oregano, loads of olive oil – and that _doesn't_ mean _replace_ the sauce with the oil, so they'd best _both_ be on it.

P: Mmm, and a tray of triple fried egg sandwiches with chili and chutney, and some curry for dipping... and egg rolls, please! Mmm. Ooh, and lots and lots of duck sauce and soy sauce?

Z: triple fried... where'd you come up with that?

P: I've paid attention at the places we've been to, and a lot of the drunks ordered those – and gyros or kebabs – and it sounded like a really good idea just now.

' _...a lot of the drunks..._ ,' Zelda noted. Something about that didn't sit well with her, though her attention was mainly on Peach's sandwich suggestion.

Z: well, ye've truly the right of that, I must grant.

P: <gasp!> And some spicy Jamaican beef patties – and really greasy, buttery fried potato skins with popcorn shrimp!

▲ End alpha ▲

Max soon joined them in their indulgence, an algorithmic cigar affecting him similarly as they switched to cartoons, his background having become a lava lamp, its pearls overlaying a shifting opalescent moiré pattern. A nanny subroutine ensured that his state of mind didn't affect his attendance, and would sober him instantly should the need arise, a similar security subroutine monitoring the active and passive defenses throughout the suite.

Another cigar each, now so stoned that they'd forgotten cartoons and switched to a live action romance movie while picking away at the leftovers.

They fell asleep in front of the intervision. The last thing that either heard as they nodded off in each other's arms was the Cinderella-like heroine admonishing the prince with a quote from More's “ _Utopia_.”

“ _If you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be_  
_corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to_  
_which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded,_  
_sire, but that you first make thieves and then punish them?_ ”

Zelda awoke in the middle of the night. The world was quiet and still as a cool breeze mixed with warm air wafted in through the open balcony. The scent of hibiscus and petrichor carried through the room. Gentle rain pattered without. Fat drops, slow roll of distant thunder. A movie played softly on the intervision; noir scenes, flute music, a man folding paper into an origami unicorn.

Zelda returned from the bathroom, taking a comforter from the bed and nestled back on the sofa between Peach's legs, resting her head between Peach's breasts. Peach's arm shifted, now lying across Zelda's chest. Zelda laid her hand across Peach's, sighed once, contentedly, a warm fuzzy feeling enveloping her once more, and slept again.

The imagery of the origami unicorn stayed with her, her dreams pleasant and unhaunted, but carrying a wistful sense of foreboding, of never knowing how much time anyone has, or how much time any two have together.

=====

The second day passed similarly.

They breakfasted on pierógi swimming in butter with salmon pâté spread over brown bread.

▼ Begin alpha ▼

The day continued with lunch in a museum (tomato croque madame, stuffed mushrooms, black forest cake), tuna-squid rolls in the botanical gardens.

Cut scene at Botanical Gardens: Peach enthralled by the lilacs and lilies; _Aye,_ Z thought, watching longingly, knowing that Peach didn't belong in her world, _but their sweet scent pales before thine_ ; husker plays a slack string in the background.

▲ End alpha ▲

“ _She walks every day_  
_through the streets of New Orleans,_  
_she's innocent and young,_  
_from a family of means;_  
_I have stood_  
_many times_  
_outside her window at night,_  
_to struggle with my instinct_  
_in the pale moonlight..._ ”

▼ Begin alpha ▼

With this song's melancholia heavy on her mind, Z thinks on what impoverished future she could bring Peach, what she could possibly offer her.

Street fair with both green tea and red bean ice creams, a flea market with some pulp novels, orders of fish and chips for an afternoon walk through the zoo (an order each eaten there, two more orders each taken to go, wrapped in newspaper, along with a shaker of salt and a bottle of malt vinegar of their own; P asks what type fish, Z says no idea and that it never matters since they always all taste the same no matter where you buy it), and a picnic basket that Peach had arranged on their way into the park late that afternoon.

More triple fried egg sandwiches with chili and chutney. Deviled eggs. Quiche Lorraine. Walnut fudge.

▲ End alpha ▲

“So... you like eggs much?” Zelda remarked.

“They're O.K., but no: you like them, and it all seemed to fit together just right. Now humor me, silly.”

They walked through the park as night settled in, bags in hand, a satisfied glow surrounding them.

Shadows shifted.

Zelda guided them away from a cul-de-sac of statuary, heading instead toward a foot bridge's underpass. They were discussing the philosophy of fighting, with a focus on situational awareness and iaido. There was an important difference between them: one has the subject scanning their surroundings, knowing why who's where, the other the readiness to act in an instant without thought or hesitation.

“One thing to never forget, Princess...” Zelda said, pausing casually to reach for something.

A knife flew from her hand into the shadows to the left as her left leg jumped to where her right had been and her right leg shot upward into the darkness to the other side. A meaty thunk to the left was barely audible beneath a snapping sound to the right.

She returned to a neutral position, her eyes dead, staring ahead decidedly into a shadow identical to the rest, “...is to know yourself, know your enemy, on deadly ground: fight...”

The shadow lost some of its substance, fading into the surrounding darkness. Two others did the same. The air cooled a little, emptying.

Zelda crouched and retrieved her knife, wiping it off on the still form lying there.

“...and always watch what you're not looking at.”

=====

Third day. They slept late, and stayed in bed all morning and most of the afternoon.

Zelda awoke before Peach, early enough to talk with Max before Peach stirred.

  
As Peach returned from her shower, she found Zelda standing in the dining area before an array of ingredients and a large hot pad. Their suite had a fully equipped kitchen, but Zelda had chosen the dining area for a warmer and more relaxed atmosphere. The image that she presented was both cute and disconcerting, since Peach had never imagined her wearing an apron, much less _only_ an apron.

Zelda looked up from her preparations and smiled nervously, giving her a quick nod of greeting to sit with her.

As Peach looked on, Zelda set some udong-myeon and quinoa to boil, while searing cabbage, goose eggs, strips of pork belly, bean sprouts, batter, and soba, topping it all with drizzles of mayonnaise and a thick, dark okonomi sauce, and finally flakes of nori, wafer-thin shavings of tebiyama-shiki honkarebushi, and a sprinkling of furikake.

The budae jjigae was done by this time, and Zelda ladled a large, shallow, wood bowl for each of them. Peach looked into the pot to see kimchi, scallions, sliced sausage, beans, tofu, mushrooms, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, chunks of cassava, and stewed tomatoes all floating in a chili-miso broth of kelp and garlic.

She watched all of this with fascination, finally turning to Zelda as she placed a few last minute mandarin orange wedges and a couple of slices of cheese into each bowl and served them.

“This is the first time that you've ever cooked for me – I mean, beyond the rabbits and pheasants,” she said with delight.

Zelda tensed up and twitched her head toward her shoulder with a short, tight smile, but said nothing, concentrating instead on pouring saké asahi for them, then cleaning the hot pad for dessert.

Peach found that she was rather partial to saké, at least while it was hot. Though it had an obviously high alcohol content, it was as smooth as the slightly apple-like tea that it smelled and even tasted like, and slightly sweet, like jasmine tea. As a result, they went through almost a liter in short order as Zelda made strawberry crêpes and cream.

Zelda looked pensive, almost saying something several times, only to hunch back down. Peach wanted to ask what was on her mind, but left it to Zelda's discretion.

Finally Zelda's words tumbled out, as if having broken a barrier and now rushing forth for fear that the wall might come down again before they fully escaped.

“I can make ye a fritata and pasteles sometime, and tostones, if ye'd like...?” she blurted and cringed, wringing her hands rapidly in her lap, her eyes wide.

Peach's lip quivered as she smiled and laid her hand over Zelda's, whose entire body jerked in reaction.

Her smile warmed as she drew Zelda a little closer.

“I'd be honored.”

Their heads still swimming, they opted for a late lunch of onion soup, spaghetti puttanesca, and multi-layered crème brûlée before starting the day.

A swan-boat ride across the lake as evening began to set in.

Foot traffic thinned. Zelda watched multiple soldati appear quietly at the market's entrances. A shadow from the rooftop moved along the ground in her periphery. ► Begin alpha ► They find themselves “invited” to an audience with a local capo. ◄ End alpha ◄

Escorted through Don Dirk's mansion, they reached a tastefully appointed library and were left to their own devise. An assortment of weapons was on display in recessed niches, the mood well set by tastefully subdued lighting cast from baffles along the front edges. Deep mahogany, burnished teak, rich rosewood, and hunter green felt dominated the appointments, bright brass piping and surprisingly understated pink marble drawing the eye selectively. Two small crystal chandeliers hung along the midline of the ceiling, with light-toned ancient oak beams opening the visual space a little further. The room itself was huge and airy though, to such an extent that rather than weighing down on them, everything came together to accentuate the room's features, as well as complementing one another.

They passed by a Krikkit bat, a complex-looking whip sword, a three piece staff, a masterfully executed repeating reflex crossbow with cams and a small out of place trébuchet on what would have been its flight groove, a butterfly knife the size of a sword, an assortment of kusarigama, a strange double-action pumped dart gun paired with a cutaway gun displaying a step-up gearbox and a magazine feeding to a final surface-wheel with a traction face, a meteor hammer paired with a flying guillotine, a small coilgun, and a short blunderbuss with a green warp-crystal attachment **4** , among less easily identified objects. Unusual pieces of armor punctuated the displays – there was even a cloak fighter's Dragoncloak among them.

Peach paused to inspect a crescent sword with pointy bits at each end and several more dotting its inner edge.

“It's called a betleH, Princess.”

“A bet-lekh?” Peach repeated.

“Close enough. It's extremely rare. A formidable weapon, in the right hands. Very few people ever even see one. The luckiest of collectors, sometimes. Otherwise only extremely dange–”

“Ladies, welcome. I thank you for joining me.”

A neatly dressed gentleman stepped through the doorway, closing the doors behind himself. Zelda's eyes wandered the library. Numerous books, several tables with well stuffed chairs, beautiful lamps, a few large French windows along the southern wall with an ornate grandfather clock centered between them, a pool table and a snooker table dominating one end alongside a disused carom table, a Caravaggio hanging on the northern wall. No sign of security goons.

“Yes, please allow me to stress that you are free to leave at any time. There is also nobody here to disturb us, and I don't think that we need fear one another at all.”

His voice cultured, his manners well met, there was still that air about him of something venomous.

“HeghluʻmeH QaQ jajvam!” Zelda spat out levelly.

“Qaplaʻ!” the man replied with aplomb, inclining his head in turn.

“Brandy?” he offered, as he poured a snifter for himself.

She declined for both of them.

“Château Lafite, 5787 **5** , perhaps? I should have known...”

Her eyes remained flat.

“The other night, there was a bit of an incident. Apparently, two men made an ill-advised attempt on a pair of women in the park,” he began, “Oh, no need to fret. I'm told that the women came through very well indeed. The same can't be said of the men.

“I heard about this through certain channels, and chose to meet you here in order to take your measure. Will you be staying here in Freeport, then? The... _syndicate_ here is broad minded. As long as everyone stays out of one another's business, one is free to do as one wishes. Our local constabulary takes care of the riff-raff, and our appointed city staff runs the business of daily civilian operations to keep things afloat.”

“We're still considering things,” Zelda replied, “we haven't yet settled on a firm decision, and would keep our options open for now.”

Z to P: “If it seems like a good deal, walk away.”

Dinner. An up and coming theme restaurant called Rage. Having ordered, but considering their alternatives while waiting, the houselights dimmed somewhat as the amphitheater stage was brought to the fore.

They lost their appetites once they realized why it was called Rage. Beasts from all across the realms were brought here to fight to their deaths as entertainment, before being served to the guests.

They left in disgust.

“What are your thoughts on ham and pineapple?” Zelda asked as they passed a hole in the wall pizzeria.

It turned out that Peach had never had the pleasure, so Zelda dragged her in.

“There are two kinds of people in the world, Princess – those who like eating pineapple on their pizza, and those who don't,” she told her as they waited for their pie, “Let's see which one you are...”

Over pizza and calzones at this middling place along the unofficial border between Highstreet and The Downs, the air at their table redolent of anchovies and olives, offset with the sweet scents of pineapple and ham, Peach was struck with inspiration: commandeer one of Daisy's pleasure schooners; she had quite a few, and two of them were currently docked in Freeport.

They left the city en route to the docks the next morning.

Zelda had returned to her guise as Tetra, scars adorning her forearms, as well as some of her torso and legs. Her knuckles and knees were a mess. All but a handful were frontal.

Peach was thinking about this when Tetra commented on them. “Showin' yore scars isn't necessary, but you'll get no respec' o'erwise, an' then it's naught but constant arguin' and work tae get an'thin' accomp'lished.”

Peach's eyes stray to Tetra's tattoo. Some strange symbols of vibrant red with velvety black outline, all within a golden and silver torc around her clavicle and the bottom of her neck.

_QeH'a'na' neH nobqu' muHoHbe'wI'_

“It says ' _What doesn't kill me just pisses me off_.' Close to it anyway. Those guys who make the betleH? Same language. The ac'chul words aren't the same, but it carries that attitude. I got the idea for it from a romance novel. I've been thinkin' tae change it tae '... _just means that something else will_ ',” she said jokingly, even as her eyes gave lie to the light of her words.

“How do you do those tricks with your disguise?” Peach asked, her curiosity unbound this time.

Tetra chuckled, “You know how I light me cigars? I don't use the matches in the case, just me thumb-tip for a simple cantrip. I don't like tae use heavier magic much because it's... let's call it ' _noisy_ '. Anythin' tha' ye do wi' magic can be ' _heard_ ' by o'er mages. These scars and the ink tha' ye see are the real thing, no' a disguise. Norm'lly I le' a standin' spell cover it all, the be'er tae keep enemies off-guard – and before you ask, aye, I'll teach ye, but ye should know what you're ge'in' into. One thing ye'll need to know outright is tha' Orcs can smell a mere glamour; Gargoyles can see right through them, while we're on the topic.”

“Are you a sorceress?”

“ _No!_ ” Tetra barked, “I'm sorry, tha' was uncalled for. It wasn't you, it was me. No, I'm not... a _sorceress_ ,” she continued, a brittleness entering her voice, “just a run-of-the-mill wizard.”

Peach remained quiet, thinking about it all, both in how it could affect her own life, and about how it seemed to affect Zelda.

A quartet of kids was standing at a street corner outside of a large, crumbling shrine. Ragged, filthy, clearly malnourished, they stood in the heat and sang a capella to any who would listen. No sign, just a tattered hat on the ground.

“ _On The Turning Away_  
_from the pale and downtrodden,_  
_and the words they say_  
_which we won't understand,_

_don't accept that what's happening_  
_is just a case of others' suffering,_  
_or you'll find that you're joining in_  
_The Turning Away._

_It's a sin that somehow_  
_light is changing to shadow_  
_and casting its shroud_  
_over all we have known..._ ”

One or two people stood around to listen, most seemed not to even see the group.

The hat lay empty and ignored.

Tetra stepped aside into the shrine. In the narthex, just before reaching the doors to the nave, Tetra turned to Peach. “Wait here.”

Within the nave, forgotten people sat dejected.

Tetra searched for the cleric. Prowling silently through the short aisle, her very presence harsh and powerful, people turned to her, some in fear, some in hope, most turned so far inward that they were unaware of her at all.

Passing the transept, she espied him in a chapel beside the apse.

“Feed them!” she growled harshly, her voice raw, angry, as she forced her coin purse into his hands.

Her eyes were red and blazing as she left with Peach – not bloodshot with burst capillaries, but actually dull-red of sclera – the air around her quite literally crackling with restrained energies, throbbing almost tangibly. Her stride was practically furious, but at least she'd lost her foul mood from moments before, settling now into mere grim determination. The wish to skewer those around her had become merely a dull throb, more easily ignored than it had been before her chat with the cleric.

Peach noted that Tetra's purse was no longer at her belt, as others gave them a very wide berth.

**O ~~~ O**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Grue: a highly aggressive, bipedal, invasive underground species capable of flight. Photosensitive, flashlights can severely burn them (the young, 2”-3” long, burst into flames when exposed to ultraviolet light). Stronger than an average Human (with great effort, a Human can kill one empty-handed).
> 
> Due to the nature of their total-dark environments they have no eyes, but ultrasonic sensor organs capable of picking up on the most minute of sounds and giving them a detailed view of the environment. The hammerhead supporting these sensors spreads roughly 2 meters (6.56(+) ft) apart, with a blind spot between them, inches from their mouth. They can also smell blood.
> 
> Thin, streamlined bodies, wings tipped with razor-sharp claws. Lobster-like exoskeleton of chitinous protein polysaccharides (impenetrable to everything but powerful firearms; 12-gauge shotguns and pulse rifles being effective), replacing surface cells with polarized silicon (allowing great environmental resistance). Feet are lizard-like with four monstrous talons radiating toward the front. Blood is thick and blue, possibly due to an abundance of hemocyanin. Tails are used for balance and the catching and dragging of prey (the ends vary: two curved tips, an almost-surgical stinger-like barb, or a large knife-like blade). Can spit acid or mix it with solids to produce a resin for hives and cocoons. Inner jaw is a muscular appendage consisting of a cord of muscle with mouth-like appendage on the end; the attack-tongue can punch through bone and armor.
> 
> 2 Hypnotoad: the whole carcass can be eaten, but the tongue is an expensive delicacy (typically corned), and haunches (often barbecued) are easily affordable to all but the most-impoverished. The tenderloin makes for a succulent weekend roast, and the innards offer a tangy haggis; the caviar isn't highly valued, but is a surprisingly popular street-vendor food nevertheless.
> 
> 3 Princess Peach: estimated to have a net worth of $1.3-1.7B [2007 USD], IAW Forbes (Dec 2007); no mention is made of how much is liquid versus tied up in assets and/or investments. Taking a uniform distribution as a starting point, this would set her at equal amounts of $0.43-0.56B each (cash/credit, collateral assets, & stock/bond/mutual investments).
> 
> For comparison: assume that you have $1,000 in the bank. Her withdrawal of M4k is equivalent to you withdrawing ≤$0.01 (i.e.: one penny). This depends on just how much you really do have at your disposal, how accurate Forbes's estimation was (or more to the point: how much she has immediately available), and her portfolio, just as her M4k is quoted in the narrative on the assumption of a $1:M1 purchasing-power equivalence.
> 
> Her net worth isn't within even a magnitude of the top ten billionaires of 2007 (for a given month, she'd be in the top 754-583 by Forbes's Aug 2007 rankings); assuming the Light World population of ~400M to scale back the billionaires' potential resources linearly (just for argument's sake), she'd still be ~0.7 of the tenth's net worth (working from a sketchy framework, she's not in Light World's top ten). By a similar token, you might contrast her 2007 net worth with that of the richest in history as given by different sources; she's far, far behind them, too.
> 
> I can't find similar data on Zelda's estimated net worth, and the estimated purchasing power of dollars and rupees seems to me to vary by a factor of ten or more (made worse by in-game inflation over a period of multiple games), but we can at least start from the fact that there's certainly a castle. Based upon a brief skimming over of similar castles, I'm guessing the Ocarina of Time version (my favorite) at ~$15M-$20M. Movoto estimates it at $113,807,400. Presumably she owns more than this, and has some form of liquid income, etc..
> 
> Assuming an annual income of 3.5x (based upon U.S. loan rates of 3x and U.K. of 4x) this property value, Zelda's would-have-been annual income might reasonably be estimated as ~$60M or ~$0.4B (this latter at least being comparable to Peach's own). Adjusting from 2013 dollars [Movato] to 2007 dollars [Forbes], sees her income as perhaps-having-been ~$53M or ~$0.36B.
> 
> 4 Blunderbuss: almost certainly Dwarven in make, though the warp-crystal modification begs the question of Skaven [rat people] involvement.
> 
> 5 Château Lafite: while most wines on Earth don't age well past a few years (some would say that they don't even particularly require aging, given recent decades' green harvesting), and some will improve with a decade or two – or even a century or two, if fortified – Light World is graced in its wines improving over far longer periods than one might imagine. A nearly 800 year old wine, while rare indeed, would almost certainly be of surpassing nose, smoothness, and flavor, with notes that would otherwise be thoroughly undetectable; in fact, millennia-old wine is well within reason.


	4. D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the accompanying playlist / soundtrack, please see:  
>  ▐► <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPYG6DgnCJHFlFe-u_MuZiew>
> 
> Foodies: yes, there are recipes available for a good number of the foods mentioned herein. You can find them in “Appendix F: Recipes” (and some few in the commentary / annotation) of the .pdf of “Seize the Deity” at  
>  ▐► <https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BG7P_sVezz8Dn5b8js_34yeAjSBhfN0v>
> 
> ▼ Begin alpha ▼  
>  This chapter is unfinished as yet, and so there are portions that break the usual narrative flow, being outlined rather than fully fleshed out. Please forgive these, as I thought that it might be better to at least present them as-is than to make readers wait until I finally clean it up entirely.  
>  ▲ End alpha ▲
> 
> ▐► **For notes on how to change fonts and font colors and so forth, please see** [Fonts, and colors, and work skins, oh my!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28934610)
> 
>   
> 
> 
> * * *

▼ Begin alpha ▼

On schooner. Set sail along the strait.

It never occurred to either of them that there was sufficient space and no need that they must share a room, much less a bed.

P looks through Z's magazines in their cabin. Manga of a number of genres, though mostly ecchi and shōjo-ai with a few yuri, and nearly all were isekai. Some of them were practically anatomy lessons and gymnastics courses. She studied them all, absorbing everything rapidly. They covered fantasy, history, science fiction, but they had some themes in common – other worlds, love, satire, feats of derring-do, philosophical questions and ethical dilemmas, an examination of the essence of living. Quite often the characters behaved provocatively, teasingly, playfully, but just as often even this was with an underlying innocence. The stories and the wildly varied and imaginative world settings absolutely fascinated her, but it was the characters' actions and interactions, their behavior and psychologies that truly drew her in.

The next day, P attempts to emulate the manga characters.

She flashes her a few times.

Surprises Z at the pool, coming up from behind her, throwing her arms around Z and giving her breasts a huge hug with multiple hand-squeezings. Amaze each other with Z's power to sink effortlessly, and P's ability to simply stay afloat. Z plays at being a lobster, crawling along the bottom, worrying P with how long she stays under.

Handing a sandwich to Z, P “ _accidentally_ ” overbalances, falls onto Z, and engulfs her in cleavage.

Having dropped her sunglasses to the floor, P reaches down to retrieve them, and waves her crotch in Z's face.

As they take in some sun, P applies lotion to Z, paying extra attention to her ass, and “ _card swiping_ ” her (Z's head lurches up in startlement, her face a masque of surprise and uncertainty, hardly offended by this, but certainly not having expected such an act on P's part; she opts to not make an issue of it for the time being); when Z applies lotion to P, P waits and arches her back as Z reaches her lumbar curve (Z commenting on the “ _elevator butt_ ” motion), pushing back too far when Z reaches her crotch.

Z asks what the hell is going on, noting that P's been behaving strangely all day.

P explains that she wanted to know what Z liked, that she wanted to be more like what Z wants.

Z asks where she got all of this from.

P says that she'd talked with the dancers at the Gull and Fleece, and asked them how they attract a woman's interest, and they'd said that it's the same as with anyone else, that beyond dinner and blowjobs, she had to figure out what the woman liked, what interested her, what drove her in life. She goes on about Z's “picture books” – Z interrupts to say that they're called “manga” – P amends what she was saying to “mangas” – Z interrupts again to say that it's both singular and plural – P amends again, continuing about how “...so many of the girls in them have huge boobs, though actually I guess that I have that part covered pretty well, but they giggled a lot, and did – umm, y'know... these... umm, things... together... though a lot of it I can't do since so many of them were pretty non-humanoid, b-but I thought – I-I...”

Z: The girls in the manga? ¡Ay, mis Diosas, qué castigo, _carajo_ y más que joder! Mira Peach, corazón, they're just books. They're stories that I enjoy, and most of the girls are attractive to me, but it doesn't mean that I'm in love with the characters or want to jump into bed with them! I like Sonic, but you don't think I want him, do you?

P: Alright, but even if they're not what you want in a woman, you still have these... needs – right? Just like the girls in your manga? You need to be touched all over, and kissed, and held and talked to, and a bunch of other stuff like that, right?

Z: Yes – I mean no. <sighs, rubbing her palm down her forehead and pinching the bridge of her nose> Yes, Princess, but not like that. It's not as simple as that. And they're not “needs”. Distracting urges maybe, frustrating wants, but hardly needs. Is this what all of the food and everything was about? The day-long dates in Freeport?

Z (frustrated, partly angry): When I slipped into your prison room in that castle, I could have been anyone, yet you declared yourself for me in the moment. This isn't some fairy tale, Princess. You don't just fall besmitten to some random schmuck who saves you from whatever's going on at the time and go all U-Haul will ye, nill ye.

P: Anyone? Aren't all relationships – or anything else – bound to be either random or by design?

Z: You don't know me – who or what I am. I'm not fit company for anyone, and I've no wish to sully you any further.

P: I've come to know a fair bit of you over the better part of a year, Zelda. It's true that I knew nothing of you then, but I do now. Aside from what little you show of yourself within, it shines through in your actions. You're kind. You care about people. You help the downtrodden and ill-fated. You stop to pet and feed stray cats. You hide it all and deny it, but you're not some worthless bastard – and though you lech, and there's no doubt of that, you're neither the rake nor the wastrel that you pretend to be.

“I love you Zelda. I'm not going anywhere.”

Zelda's eyes were suddenly wet. Her breathing forgotten and stopped for a timeless moment, it returned suddenly in short, sharp bouts, uneven. Her eyes wide and hurt, nostrils flared. A complex of emotions wrestled across her face.

“Love. Want – can't – complicated,” she said haltingly, her voice choked. Her head moved strangely, short quick motions as if trying to rid herself of a fly, her shoulder twitching.

“Then make it simple. Please.”

Zelda looked at her.

“Thou know'st no' what thou ask, Princess,” Zelda sighed, her voice uneven as she gathered herself, “You trust someone, maybe they don't stab you in the back, maybe they do. Luckily it's the same the other way around, too. Sometimes you distrust someone and they have a heart of gold; sometimes distrusting them was the smartest thing you've ever done. So you extend your trust warily, to some few, and wait to see what happens. We all do. You never know which one is which, either – and I don't mean that you don't know 'til you find out the hard way that they're nice or not, I mean that you _can't_ ever know, since what's true today gives no guarantee of tomorrow. Anyone can turn into your enemy, or turn out to have had their hand against you from the get go – what in all of the Hells does ' _the get go_ ' even mean, anyway; verdammte Sonic – in any event, 'tis the sword of Damocles that ye beg then... and is ever our Achilles' heel. Good attention is bad, because ye never know when it will be used against ye; bad attention is good, because it's honest, ye always know where ye stand with it.

“When you have something to lose, and fear losing it, you've already lost – everything; ▲ End alpha ▲ when you have nothing left to lose, you're free to do anything. Why do you think Ruru sometimes calls me ' _Bakemono_?' Partly because it's true, and partly as a reminder to Sonic,” Zelda told her, her eyes tight and boring into Peach, her brow furrowed, “I don't... talk about the past for a reason; sometimes life gets in the way. When you break your toe, you limp for a bit, but you don't whinge on about it for the rest of your life.

“Do you know what the ugliest word is in any language? The single worst curse you could ever bestow on anyone? The most hateful, painful state in existence? The last thing to die. Hope.”

Peach noted that Zelda's use of “ _Princess_ ” had changed again, having become much softer now, carrying a tone of something unidentifiable; it was almost reaching out to her, so completely at odds with Zelda's aloof distancing. It made no sense, but she couldn't spare the attention to analyze it just yet.

“That's... why... you don't want me,” Peach realized.

“ _Don't_ want–? Oh, sweet Nayru! Ye really are that blonde, aren't ye?”

=====

Peach held a package, looking up at Zelda. “You got me a present when we went shopping?”

Rubbing the back of her neck, Zelda tried to play it down. “Well, I got a few knives for myself, the manga that you've looked through, a few other things,” her voice started at a normal volume, but steadily decreased, until it was now only a mumble, “...and I might have kind of also gotten you some baci – hazelnut chocolates – and a box of cherry cordials... and possibly a few pounds of marzipan...”

Peach removed the wrapping and looked within. A confused look crossed her face.

She lifted out a large men's flannel shirt, the arms flopping longer than her own, and looked back to Zelda.

Zelda bit her thumbnail, then smiled nervously, her hair still a mess from the sea breeze.

“Humor me?” she asked, echoing Peach's words from the picnic as she wrung her fingers, “And save the ribbons. I'd like to see you wearing just those at some point.”

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Night. Peach drifting off to sleep, wearing the shirt that Zelda had gotten for her. Zelda's hand slides hesitantly down Peach's side, fingers spreading across her hip, pausing in a circular pattern, repeating this around her cheek, caressing the cleft of her ass. Peach pushes backward encouragingly, lifting herself the tiniest bit as Zelda's hand slides in and finds a resting place deep between her cheeks, the first knuckle of her pinkie finger nestling within Peach's anus, giving her a little goodnight-jiggle. Peach smiles happily at this as her heart races. She squeezes her cheeks once around Zelda's hand. Zelda's soft kiss brushes the nape of her neck, Peach snuggles backward into Zelda's form and sleep embraces her while still lost in formless cottony thoughts of happiness.

▲ End alpha ▲

Zelda lay there thinking. Soon she was only listening to Peach's soft cooing, her hand still enveloped in Peach's cheeks, her fingertip periodically squeezed, honeysuckle perfuming her every breath.

Zelda dreamt deep of years together with Peach. Starving together. Sleeping in the rain together. Peach growing old before her time, harsh and bitter. Ruined by her hand.

Now she sat awake, utterly alone and shivering from a cold that she couldn't feel, yet couldn't shake. As wonderful as Zelda felt from being with her, she feared far more what she couldn't give Peach. A life worthy of her.

=====

Tired of heavy sauces and the continual flow of pastries, Zelda prowled the galley. “Is there no food anywhere on this Goddess-damnable ship?” she demanded of the chef, “Real food – bread, meat, cheese; beer. Maybe some apples?”

She looked all around, finding only flan, tembleque, cinnamon-raisin rice pudding, butterscotch pudding, tapioca, pistachio custard, lemon sorbet, Key lime pie, pecan pie, and treacle-truffle cakes.

“Well,” the chef stammered, somewhat at a loss for direction, “today's lunch is chicken cordon bleu with shiitake, and tonight we will be serving canard à l'orange, pancit, matar paneer masala, and spanakopita; lunch tomorrow is manicotti and pork vindaloo with agua fresca followed by cannoli, and tomorrow night there will be beef Wellington and Stroganov with smetana atop egg noodles and a dessert of cherry tart. We were thinking of corned beef and cabbage at some point, but for now I fear that aside from what you see here, all that we have ready is apple crumb strudel cream roll.”

“Apple? Ah-hah! So you do have real food hidden about here...”

=====

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Toying with the bean sprouts and green onions in her phở gầu trứng vịt, Peach tells Zelda that they might run into her cousin Daisy. It seems that she's usually down in the region at this time of year, playing tourist in Meivitha, or partying in Yxorca. She asks that Zelda avoid the topic of Daisy's contract harem.

Encounter Daisy on the third day.

When Daisy boards the schooner and sees them, she stands stock still, wearing a shocked-but-knowing you-must-be-kidding look on face.

D: Peach – really? When did this become a thing?

Her vowels were broad and low, and her speech bore a rolling cadence, though it was far slower than Peach's rapid fire paragraphs.

Peach and Zelda look to each other. “We're not –” they begin at the same time.

They stop short and begin again, “We haven't –” and “She isn't –”, and trail off.

“Ja, you so totally are! Oh, that was just adorable – you guys are so _precious_ like that! Do it again!”

Neither one says a word.

D: Instantly recognized you guys' coupleness. Your father will positively _shit_ himself! Oh, you know he'll get over it soon enough, but he won't be jazzed about the grandkids.

P: What grandkids?

D: Exactly. O-M-G, I'm so _happy_ for you guys! Come here! Hugs! Now dish, how did you two meet? How long have you been together?

Z stares.

As the hug came to a close, Daisy stood back and looked closely at Peach, then burst into a huge smile again and pinched her cheeks.

D: Oh, that punim there!

Z continues to stare.

D: Hello? Tomboy. Boys are good, girls are better; both have their uses though, so a few of each is best, and I'm hardly against other species... actually, I rather enjoy being “ _against_ ” other species. <Twitches nose licentiously at Zelda.> I clocked you in a heartbeat, honey, but I'm good at that. If you're traveling incognito, then who am I to judge? It stays under wraps as far as I'm concerned. <Shrugs.>

▲ End alpha ▲

“Hey, don't worry about it. You gotta do you – or her...” Daisy winked at Peach, running her eyes over Zelda, then gasped and covered her mouth in much-feigned surprise “...or me?”

Peach stood there, unmoving, her eyes wide and glassed over.

Zelda cleared her throat. “I'm afraid that you misunderstand, Your High Royal Highness. She and I met at an affair late last summer, and I have been hounding her ever since – but alas, to no avail. She yet resists my every overture.”

Daisy seemed to consider this. “Well, cuz' here always was a little prudish. You know, you can always call me, if it doesn't work out...”

Peach managed somehow to both stiffen and shift imperceptibly closer to Zelda.

Zelda, for her part, seemed unfazed, clearly dismissing the suggestion out of hand.

“Well, it was worth a shot,” Daisy commented, “speaking of which,” her look now returning to Peach, “seems I missed my chance with you. Mmm, wished I would've known, sug'...” She smiled slightly, raising her eyebrow and holding her head at a slightly lowered angle, visibly running her tongue across her teeth.

“Unless I can steal her away from you...?” Daisy looked directly at Zelda, but seemed to be talking to Peach.

“Of course,” now looking at Peach, and seemingly talking to Zelda “you'll need to take your time. You might surprise yourself with whatever you decide.

“Meanwhile, have you guys ever been to Yxorca? I'm telling you, the Piranha Plant Girls flow like water, and those Koopa chicks are just crazy, I mean they don't just do anything you ask, they _want_ to do _everything_! Oh, and the Shy Gals? Their raves are to die for, the absolute best. Speaking of best, some of them have the best of both worlds, and the rest _are_ both worlds, and they're all fully functional in whatever way, if you know what I mean. Oh, babes, you do know what they have beneath those dresses of theirs, right? Explains why they're so popular on intervision porn sites. Not to mention they make rabbits look like pandas! Well, you know how the song goes: give yourself over to absolute pleasure – and lucky for me, I love the taste of brie...”

Peach turned increasingly crimson as Daisy gushed on.

Dinner with Daisy that evening involved dolmades, a lightly oiled pilaf with almonds and pistachios, and a whole roasted goat with peaches and cherries.

As Peach browsed the canapés, Zelda grabbed a handful of bacon-wrapped dates and seared shrimp, her plate already full of cheese-smothered oysters.

Peach smacked them across the room.

Zelda stared at her.

“Cyanide,” Peach said, her entire person now firmly engaged and wary.

▼ Begin alpha ▼ Search made, security increased, culprit eludes them. ▲ End alpha ▲ Only a loose halyard showed any sign of disarray.

“I suppose I'm at least partly to blame for this,” Peach told Zelda, “since it was my idea to go running around Highstreet like that.”

Daisy hugged her and shushed her.

“No,” Zelda said, “I didn't think, not you. I led them right to us. Cálmate.”

“You don't understand, Zelda. We commandeered Daisy's schooner, right? Well, my dad and hers maintain the best spy networks anywhere, and they love spying on each other just for the competition of it, so as soon as her dad knew because of my charging things to her account when she was out here somewhere, mine must have found out shortly afterward, and then it couldn't have been long before someone let it slip and Warbotdorf's men found out, and then this tonight with the poison and, an–...”

“Shh...” Daisy tutted, “we're all O.K., nothing happened that we can't fix. It's alright.”

Later, on the deck. Daisy and Zelda were taking some air, martinis in hand. Peach was within, soaking in a bath.

“I overplayed my hand pretty badly, earlier, with who's chasing whom?” Zelda asked, making it a statement.

“Yeah, you did sweetie, but it was so much fun to watch you guys squirm!”

“I trust that you won't let her know that you know that she's the one doing the chasing?”

“Oh my Stars, no! I would never hurt Peach like that!” Daisy shook her head rapidly, “Oh, I'd pee in her butt in a heartbeat, ma cher, but I don't think that's in the cards. She's fun to tease a little, but she's a real sweetheart, and kind of delicate. But you know that already. ”

Zelda nodded and looked out to sea.

After a while, Zelda confessed that she'd been thinking of leaving Peach in her element. The road wasn't where Peach belonged.

_...a lot of the drunks..._

Peach deserved better than that.

Better than her.

“Oh, hell no. Hell-the-fuck no. For one, she won't let you. Seriously, you literally can't. My cousin's an obstinate little cuss, and once she has her mind set on something, there's no way in hell that you're shaking her from that goal. Aside from that, I know her too well. This is her natural born element, but you're obviously her entire world now. It would devastate her. She doesn't care about parties and fancy food and crap. She never did. She lives in her heart, and her heart is now firmly lodged in you. You don't have to love her, but you can't leave her like that. You know what that's like.

“Besides,” Daisy wound down, “we aren't always who we once were, and who we've been never really deserts us.”

Zelda remained quiet after this, considering Daisy's words.

“Do you always say so much with so little?” she asked at last in a low voice.

“Only to those who are listening,” Daisy replied, finishing her drink.

Later, all had returned to the deck for an evening of music. Varicolored paper lanterns decorated the area.

They had gone through two bottles of Zinfandel, and were well on their way through the third, picking through a light snack of onaga on a bed of ogo. The breeze was light, carrying with it a frisson. The conversation was light, the moon beautiful. The band kept a constant background without overwhelming the ear.

They played “ _Boléro_ ,” “ _The four seasons_ ,” and “ _In the hall of the Mountain King_ ,” the gentle tidal swells seemingly in time with the music all the while. The mood shifted to a slower pace as the next piece began.

“ _Who can say, when the roads meet,_  
_that love might be_  
_in your heart,_  
_and who can say, when the day sleeps,_  
_if the night keeps_  
_all your heart –_  
_night keeps_  
_all your heart..._ ”

The song wound down, and as they opened “ _Grande valse villageoise_ ,” Zelda fixed Daisy with an accusatory glare, Daisy in turn was obvious in her struggle to maintain a façade of complete innocence as Peach looked dreamily toward the band and began swaying to the music, singing softly to herself.

“ _I know you,_  
_I walked with you once upon a dream;_  
_I know you,_  
_the gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam..._ ”

Zelda arose, coming around the table a little unsteadily. Peach glanced up inquiringly.

“May I have this dance?” Zelda asked her softly, holding out her hand.

Peach didn't comprehend at first, then melted inside as it dawned on her, nodding her head nervously, her eyes darting around the floor.

They waltzed. As the music changed, so too did their steps. Peach was lost in the moment, flying within, her head aswirl with emotion. Time lost all meaning.

Soon the tempo picked up, a more urgent rhythm taking hold, a strong beat. Merengue. Zelda picked up her pace to match it, throwing a challenging look to Peach, who picked up the gantlet.

As this concluded, the band shifted again. The beat remained a steady 2/4, but the melody demanded a tango.

Zelda regarded Peach directly, possessively, dominantly, assuming a demanding and territorial stance. Peach returned the look with impudence, walked around her haughtily, then pressed forward brazenly into Zelda's space, demanding and tempting. Zelda took hold of Peach, turned, swung Peach through the air, and grasped her back just beneath the shoulder. She responded to this deferentially without hesitation, leaning into Zelda, giving her hand to Zelda's outstretched arm while grasping her back around the waist.

Moving slowly, then quickly, left and right. Swivel. Turn. Whirl and reel in. Dip and hook. Reverse. Zelda's hand rested on Peach's waist, guiding her exactly where she wanted her. Attuning to each other's rhythms, their steps increased in size and boldness, occupying the entire floor. Lift, hook, spin, dip. Return. Slide through legs, lean in, drag.

  
As Peach caught her breath afterward, Zelda had a word with the band.

Returning to their table, she grabbed hold of Peach's hand and pulled her to the dance floor once more.

The music struck up, and they danced once more. A bouncing melody, cheerful and alive. It picked up quickly, Zelda calling out the lyrics as they danced, her voice now on a wireless mic.

“ _Tus besos son_  
_los que me dan_  
_alegria._

_Tus besos son_  
_los que me dan_  
_el placer._

_Tu besos son –_  
_Tus besos son..._  
_son como caramelo!_

_Caramelo,_  
_me hacen llegar_  
_al cielo!_ ”

Peach didn't quite grasp all of the words, but what she did understand nearly made her swoon.

The next song she understood entirely, and even as she danced, her head was awhirl with the implications, her heart pounding, her breath short and eyes wide.

“ _Steppin' out with my baby,_  
_can't go wrong 'cause I'm in right;_  
_ask me when will the day be –_  
_the big day may be tonight!_ ”

The evening eventually closed with “ _Für Elise_ ” and “ _An die Freude_.”

Through the second half of “ _An die Freude_ ,” they lit and released dozens of sky lanterns, watching them float off and wreathe the night in pockets of warmth and color over the wine-faced sea.

It was late by the time that they returned to their cabin. Their last dance had been so romantic that Peach was still dancing it within – a slow bolero, spinning, turning, sweeping; breathtaking and sizzling while still holding an ineffable sweetness... They'd danced for hours – in fact were still slick with the now-cool sweat that Peach was having a great deal of trouble ignoring as Zelda's scent grazed the back of her throat – and so were still far too amped up for sleep to claim them as yet. The intervision played music in the background as they talked for a while, neither of them able to make the next move, but neither willing to give up the timing, the mood.

Peach looked inquiringly toward the nightstand, where she'd set the jar of bridesbane.

“No. Not tonight, Peach. Any other time you want, but your first needs to be special.”

When their lips finally came together, they were only dimly aware of the song playing on the intervision as Peach's toes began to curl, Zelda's knees finding their way between her thighs.

“ _Whatever tomorrow brings,_  
_I'll be there,_  
_with open arms and open eyes, yeah._  
_Whatever tomorrow brings,_  
_I'll be there._  
_Oh, I'll be there..._ ”

They lost themselves in each other, drifting blissfully in touch, in whispers, shared breaths, anticipation. Zelda eventually dropped her disguise entirely, presenting only her true form as Peach's lips and fingertips wandered gently over her scars, exploring her entirety, memorizing every detail.

Dawn.

The sea basked in the early rays as they made their way to breakfast.

Daisy was already in the nook, reading, as they wandered in. Peach was hugging Zelda as they walked, nibbling on her ear.

Daisy looked up and simply said “G'morning, guys. Sleep well?”

Before Zelda could say a word, Peach bubbled over with “Not a single wink!” squeezing Zelda one last time and kissing her cheek as they disentangled themselves to forage, then rushing back to taste her lips before making her way to the food.

“Ooh, more tuna! And another milkshake!” she exclaimed gleefully, gathering small bowls of celery, onion, a shaker of powdered garlic, and a jar of salad dressing, then thinking about it and grabbing pickle relish and corn.

“What do you mean ' _more_ ' and ' _another_ '? You just got here.”

Peach bit her lip and admitted evasively “Well... there might have been a little midnight snacking... three or four times...” as she placed her food on the table.

Daisy raised her brows and weaved her head back and forth.

“Three or four times? Really? I suppose that explains why you guys're practically glowing.”

“Five actually,” Zelda corrected, grabbing up muesli and the graham crackers, along with a large salad bowl that she'd emptied out, then shakers of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, and mace, “but who's counting?”

“Five times?” Daisy asked, “Oh, now I just don't know whether to be impressed or envious.”

“No,” Zelda clarified, returning to talk with the omelette cook **1** as she clarified over her shoulder, “five _snacks_. _Six_ 'times',” then winked at Daisy, blew a kiss to Peach, and started making demands for a handful of seared sausage links, three omelettes with both crisp bacon and chewy bacon, mushroom, feta, and Swiss, a dozen each of pizza rolls and cream cheese jalapeño poppers, and two complete orders of eggs royale with salted ham and both beluga and salmon caviar, making sure that he understood that she meant two full English muffins, hence four halves, not two halves, before rummaging around for ranch dressing, hot sauce, and lime juice.

“Hmm. Feeling-good foods, huh?” Peach remarked to Zelda, “Looks as if we'll have to do that a _whole lot_ more often... you busy five minutes from now?” she asked, running her eyes over Zelda, biting her lower lip seductively, swiveling her torso and breathing heavily.

Zelda appeared to consider this for a moment, “Mayhap I could pencil you in for a mustache ride, but that _could_ present a bit of a challenge.”

“Oh, that's alright – I find that I've developed a preference for riding bareback!”

Peach wandered nonchalantly over to Zelda, “...and if I'm a good widdow girl, and finish a-a-all of my bweakfast, may I have something for dessert? Pwe-e-ease?” batting her eyelids as she asked, her fingers walking up Zelda's shirt and down to her butt.

“...and then maybe you could do that thing again? You know, that thing that you do with my toes? I really like that.”

Daisy fanned herself dramatically “Day-umm... you done turned my baby cousin into a sex fiend overnight? Y'all ain't right, girl! Oh, and it's official: both impressed _and_ envious.”

Peach's eyes bulged with embarrassment as she returned with her food and drink, balancing a bowl of shrimp and shredded carrot to add to the tuna with a plate of kippered herring and bacon piled high.

Daisy gave her a look, “Aw, hells yeah – ride 'er cowgirl! You go gitchu some!” and proceeded to rat-tail Peach's ass repeatedly with a large twisted cloth napkin.

“Oh, my... Zel, you simply have to see her face! I swear she looks like I just woke her up with surprise butt sex!”

Zelda was munching away on fruitcake as she sat down to await her multiple egg dishes.

Watching how carefully Zelda was moving, and how gingerly she lowered herself to the well-upholstered seat, Daisy asked “You alright there, hon?”

Zelda gave her a fragile smile, her face a rictus of contented pleasure and cautious pain, “Oh aye, and then some. It's just... been a few years...”

“Well shitfire! Good on you, then,” Daisy smiled, a mix of sympathy and friendly ribbing, “It's about time you knocked the cobwebs outta that thing!”

“Aye, maybe so, but our little Peach here turns out to be primal. Extremely primal. I have sore spots in places where most people don't even have places. I had no idea how strong a headlock her thighs were capable of – and I think I'm suffering a little hearing loss...”

“So I gathered from the claw marks on your shoulders.”

“I'm also fairly certain that the lass could shatter crystal.”

“Oh, ja, I know...”

Peach's face froze as she let out a squeak, “What?”

“Sorry to break it to ya hon, but there's no one on this ship who doesn't know when you're boinking. Not really much you can do about that, here.”

Peach smiled nervously.

“...and oh my Goddesses, she's a total perv – and coming from me, that's saying something!”

Peach took this as an opportunity to change the subject, “Well, you shouldn't have told me about your little mountaineer obsession then, now should you?”

Daisy's face took on a look of curious confusion.

“Don't ask,” Zelda winced as she repositioned herself very slowly and carefully, then grinned with a supremely satisfied look.

“I seem to recall _quite_ a bit of reciprocity there – unless you'd prefer that I not return such favors...” Peach observed, wiggling her butt suggestively.

Zelda glanced over to her with a smile, her eyes gliding down to soak in the view of Peach's ass, and actually began to blush a little herself for once.

“Methinks an opening just became available in my schedule...” running her tongue across her lips.

Daisy's face took on a mock gape, “Oh, that's just lovely. G'head, rub it in why don'cha? I'll just sit here pining away all by my little lonesome.”

Squaring her shoulders, Peach looked Daisy dead in the eye, “So, still gonna tease me now, the way you always do? Hmm?” she asked, her eyebrows raised proudly.

“Nah,” Daisy replied, “I'll let the shiny-new wear off a bit – then lay into you ten times as much!” then gave her a wink and blew her a kiss.

Peach stuck her tongue out.

Daisy just rolled her eyes and added “Mmm, darlin' don't I just wish!”

Peach stole bites of Zelda's food here and there, particularly the white chocolate macadamia cookies that Zelda had found, and spent the rest of the morning bouncing around hyperactively, alternating between containing herself primly and gushing with overshared details, and generally pumping Daisy throughout for information from her own broad experience.

“You guys sound like you've already rewritten the dang' Kamasutra!”

After a while, things quieted down.

Zelda and Daisy found themselves looking bemusedly at Peach.

“What?” she asked them, when she finally realized that they were staring at her.

“You seen the smile on this girl's face, Zel? She looks like a dog that can't stop fartin'!”

Peach reacted before she could think, “Hrr-hngh unngg, mmm...”

“I'll just take that to mean that you had yourself a good ole time there, hon'.”

“You should see the hickies she gave me.”

Peach gaped at Zelda.

“You'll have to come to the bathroom with me for that, though.”

Peach started slapping Zelda's arm with both hands.

“Well, considering the ones that I can see – on both of y'all, I might add...”

Fending off Peach's attacks, Zelda continued her exchange, “Speaking of, did you know she has the cutest little mole inside her left thigh, just below her–”

Peach let out a squeal and redoubled her efforts.

Aside from some space to avoid wearing their snacks, they were joined at the hips, and quite often the lips, for the rest of the day, Zelda feeding Peach little tidbits of cheese and marmalade, and Peach preening and bubbling from Zelda's attention, surprising her a few times by kissing the food into Zelda's mouth.

=====

  
Although they had disappeared before brunch for a little fun and a nap, it wasn't long before they made another appearance in the dining room, then on to the parlor.

A leisurely lunch, followed by shuffleboard, and a prolonged merienda while whale watching. The pastry chef was a miracle worker.

As the afternoon wore on, Daisy fixed Peach with a look that Peach knew well. She was about to ask something serious, and it wasn't going to be comfortable at all.

Zelda picked up on Peach's mood just as Daisy began.

“So cuz, y'know I gotta ask. Is she good to you?”

Zelda froze, her breathing stopped, her nerves feeling as if they were petrifying as they awaited Peach's inevitable verdict. She wanted nothing more than to cease existing right then, or to at least be blown to oblivion and her ashes whisked away to the deepest and darkest of caves.

The sound of hoofbeats faintly crossed the skies as time stretched out.

Peach smiled and nodded, “It turns out that I'm a pineapple person after all.”

Daisy's face took on an odd expression.

“Kinky...”

Zelda choked on the mouthful of sandwich that she'd forgotten about.

Teatime rolled around, replete with seafood salads and delectable morsels.

“Hey there, buttmunch, I–” Daisy began, then trailed off.

Peach was blushing the reddest that she'd ever seen her, and she'd made Peach blush to no end in her day.

“O-M-G, I am so filing that away for blackmail material – you little _perv_...!”

Peach's eyes widened even further as she cringed at Zelda's wicked grin.

Zelda then turned to Daisy and nodded confirmation of her inference.

“With _tongue_ , too,” Zelda expanded unnecessarily “and you know just how long her tongue is.”

Daisy acted aghast at such behavior, causing Peach to burn an even deeper crimson.

“She does it, too,” Peach mumbled.

Daisy and Zelda turned to each other, their eyes dancing as they suppressed their smiles.

“Why, Zel, what's wrong with you?!”

Zelda's eyebrows pulled together in a look of contrition as she bowed her head.

“I don't know what comes over me!” she exclaimed, casting the back of her hand to her forehead, “Woe! I find that I am ensorcelled – I cannot help myself. _Please_ , _save_ me!”

Daisy heaved a great sigh.

“I fear that your foul and filthy acts go far too far. I cannot allow such vile depravity to continue; you are beyond redemption!”

“What ever shall become of me, base wretch that I am?”

This went on for several minutes, and while Peach hardly relished this particular attention, nor quite shook her unease, the shock wore away gradually as she acclimated to the ribbing.

=====

▼ Begin alpha ▼

D notes Z flushed and pale at same time (a good trick, with her skin).

D: I need to have a girl talk w/ P.

Z: And I'm not a girl?

D: Not for this talk, no. Now shoo, you! G'wan, git! Go watch a movie or somethin', 'cause you're next.

“The Talk.” D goes over ground-rule stuff about Z w/ P; lube, talking about what's O.K. and not O.K., preferences, deal-breakers, red flags, etc.. Has P write things down.

D repeats this with Z, complete with pen and paper.

D sits with both to get The Talk going, then locks them into the kitchen to do the same with each other on the assumption that they're idiots who won't do so otherwise (P's clueless and desperately eager to please, Z's just desperate and risks enmeshing again) – with the promise that they'll repeat these steps if she's not satisfied with the results.

She's not satisfied, so rinse & repeat.

Second go around sufficient, but she'll keep her eyes on them and do it all over again if she feels that either of them isn't talking when they should have.

They spend the next two weeks relaxing with Daisy and goofing around.

Peach tries the bridesbane one evening, they try it together another evening, all goes well.

▲ End alpha ▲

=====

“...and I'll always be all pretty for you, and smell nice, and everything! I promise!” Peach finished breathlessly.

Zelda just smiled gently, cupping Peach's face.

“You're perfect just as you are.”

“Guys, please, enough with the canoodling – not all of us have someone to bump uglies with at the moment.”

=====

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Z reading manga in bed, P asks what she's reading, Z shows her _Dark Hunter_ , P asks her to read it to her as she snuggles up against her side to sleep. Z just watches her sleep for a while, her chest rising and falling peacefully, smiling softly.

▲ End alpha ▲

=====

Poolside one lazy afternoon.

Peach was dozing gently beneath a canopy on an inflatable mattress in the middle of the water, kept from bumping into the sides by small random jets from the pool and the gentle automated proximity-flippers of the mattress.

“Y'know,” Daisy opened, “some of this might just be all my fault. Peach imprinting on you and all.”

Zelda marked her place and set down her book, getting the marked impression that this was leading someplace. Lifting her drink, she took a sip, then a healthier swig, and waited.

“When we were kids, her parents were away a lot. Oh hell, they were never really there even when they _were_ there.

“Anyways, we kinda had her stay with us a lot. Every summer and dang' near every winter. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure she spent more time there than at home, and she still stays over for most of the year.

“So, being kids, or 'teens later, we played all of the games we could think of, but she was especially fond of the whole knight-and-domnizelle routine. Oh, sometimes we'd dress it up under guise of Railroads East into Wamphyri territory, or maybe Super-mutants and Space Aliens, but it was still almost always just the two of us. I generally ended up playing both the villain and the hero, and whenever I came and saved her from the Dragon or Big Bug-Eyed Monster, or untied her from the tracks, or whatever, she'd demand a kiss – not that I minded, 'course, since that just meant I'd get to cop a quick feel or two... and there would maybe be some skinny dippin', too...

“What I'm sayin' is that I kind of might've encouraged her hero-thing with all of that. That, and Peach isn't gonna hurt you.”

Zelda didn't know how to process all of this.

This whole time, she'd worried that it was just some silly infatuation, or a sense of obligation, or...

“So... when she said that she just needed a little time to adjust...”

Daisy winced at this, “Uh-huh; she really meant just exactly that, darlin'.”

Festering in Zelda's mind though was that at yet another turn, Peach was shown to have been cast aside by those who would raise her, who should have been her greatest shield; spurned, yet still having bloomed.

Peach yawned and stretched lazily just then, and glanced over to her as if Zelda were her knight in shining armor, then took a few sips of her mojito and nestled back in the floater.

“You've been good for her too, you know,” Daisy observed.

Zelda eyed her for a moment, disbelieving.

“She's a lot more confidant now – and I don't mean just 'cause you two finally got your shit together. There's a fundamental difference in her now. She's grounded. That means a lot.”

Zelda seemed to sag into herself at this, as if she'd been placed on a pedestal and must now live up to expectations far beyond her capabilities.

“Oh now, stop that. It's not about you. You think I can't see her knuckles and things? The way she moves now? The look in her eyes? She's assessing _everything_ , not just taking it as it comes. Those rough and tumble clothes she's in – she isn't simply wearing them; they fit her, they fit who she's become. She's learned to stand on her own from you, but you're not what's supporting her. She is. You could learn something from her about that.”

After Zelda had had some time to absorb this, Daisy pressed on.

“You know House Sarasa stands with you, or at least would if y'all would stake claim?”

Zelda smiled wistfully.

“That's sweet, Daisy, but I think that your father might have some say in such matters.”

Daisy smiled back, “For an Imperial Princess on the run an' all, you sure are a thickheaded one sometimes.”

Zelda burst out laughing.

“You echo the words of my confidante of many years, though he'd as like rap my head against a tree as use soft words to guide me.”

“And y'all're still deflecting, Zel. Doesn't matter none. I may not have full authority, but I can speak as his proxy, and I know his mind full well. If he knew that it was you, he'd back you all the way – an' believe you me, even if he doesn't know for sure just yet, he knows damn' well.”

Zelda quirked her brow at this.

“Do you honestly mean to tell me that you think you can run around all over the realms willy nilly and not have everyone notice?”

Zelda appeared aghast, as if this were an entirely new and alien thought to her.

“Oh, honey... not all of us knew where you were all the time, but you can bet yer butt we knew the deal. We couldn't act without startin' shit to no end, but you have our backin' if you wan' make a move – and Kong Country. Same with the Mushroom Kingdom, for as much good as that does. Probably not Koopa, but you probably guessed that already.”

“I'd as lief not involve the caitiff Kong,” Zelda replied with a cold edge.

Daisy reached over to put her hand over Zelda's.

“You don't know what's goin' on behind the scenery, honey. DK is on your side, believe me. He's a canny one, plays it close to the vest an' all, but second and third order derivatives show his true intentions.”

Zelda stared blankly, “And... ye lost me.”

“Spy stuff; reliable extrapolations from what he does to what's true or just a front.”

Zelda nodded and filed it for later rumination.

=====

As they prepared to disembark, Daisy stood waiting to see them off. Zelda offered her hand, and Daisy raised her eyebrow, arms akimbo.

She glanced down at Zelda's hand.

“You think so, do you? Oh, bless your heart, honey – hells no, I'on't think so! 'sides, you're family now – ya just didn't know it is all,” drawing her into a deep hug. Zelda melted within, and wanted to cry. Daisy could see that, but graciously pretended not to, for which Zelda was grateful.

“Now you take good care of my cuz', a'ight? She's the only one I got. If she gets hurt, you're gonna answer to me for it.

“And that goes for you too, cuz'. I hear you turn into a little butthole, I'm'a tan your hide.”

**O ~~~ O**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **1** \-- Omelette cook: Zelda had already inquired about the possibility of overcooked ratburgers with okonomi sauce, having acquired a taste for them during her stint with the Dwarves. Unsurprisingly, it was firmly not an available option.


	5. Úlairi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the accompanying playlist / soundtrack, please see:  
>  ▐► <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPYG6DgnCJHFlFe-u_MuZiew>
> 
> Foodies: yes, there are recipes available for a good number of the foods mentioned herein. You can find them in “Appendix F: Recipes” (and some few in the commentary / annotation) of the .pdf of “Seize the Deity” at  
>  ▐► <https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BG7P_sVezz8Dn5b8js_34yeAjSBhfN0v>
> 
> ▼ Begin alpha ▼  
>  This chapter is unfinished as yet, and so there are portions that break the usual narrative flow, being outlined rather than fully fleshed out. Please forgive these, as I thought that it might be better to at least present them as-is than to make readers wait until I finally clean it up entirely.  
>  ▲ End alpha ▲
> 
> ▐► **For notes on how to change fonts and font colors and so forth, please see** [Fonts, and colors, and work skins, oh my!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28934610)
> 
>   
> 
> 
> * * *

▼ Begin alpha ▼

First mate is resistance seed, as is one of the crewmen.

Fresh from graving and a shave, _Nazgûl's_ **1** fog is subdued.

Tetra: “Unlike you scurvy lot, I've no need fer some pre'y-arsed cabin boy. I'm a fookin' lady!” (switches to falsetto, with an excellent imitation of a lousy imitation of highborn accent and mannerisms) “We require our personal assistant to take our memoirs.” (returns to character) “Muyn! Any o' ye' ferge' tha' an' cast yer attentions 'er way?” (smiles manically, eyes bulging and gleaming) “I kill ye – _a lot_.”

▲ End alpha ▲

Her voice had shifted subtly as she ended the oration. She'd used the Weirding Way ever so slightly, just enough to plant a strong aversion in all of their minds.

As the ship weighed anchor, a violin struck up a tune and the crew struck up a song.

“ _Yo-hohoho, Yo hoho-ho,_  
_Yo-hohoho, Yo hoho-ho,_  
_Yo-hohoho, Yo hoho-ho,_  
_Yo-hohoho, Yo hoho-ho,_

_Binkusu no sake wo,_  
_todoke ni yuku yo_  
_umikaze kimakase namimakase!_  
_Shio no mukou de,_  
_yuuhi mo sawagu_  
_sora nya wa wo kaku tori no uta..._ ”

The first few days passed without incident. As evening approached on the third day, Tetra went to her navigation room, insisting that she not be disturbed for some time to come. She arranged a simple decoy before the table. After several minutes passed, a crewman peered in through the door's portal, making out her shape silhouetted against the sunset-painted clouds and the darkened horizon. Picking up a satchel of food, she slipped out the bay window and along the eaves to that of her bedroom.

Someone entered Tetra's darkened cabin. A Goron, and a hulking brute of one by the name of Pantagruel; a deep tulip-mustard colored skin with large spiral and simple geometric tattoos, his broad stone body and massive arms presented a menacing presence – Tetra had noticed his yard walk and kept her eye on him; most of the crew displayed the same yard walk, but his carried a more self-assured air of presumptuous satisfaction. One crewman was outside keeping watch, with another by navigation. Two minutes of silence. He stumbled back out, crotchless, choking his last around his own manhood, sans testes.

Tetra slipped back out through the window and back to the navigation room moments before being called to her cabin.

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Z goes through prearranged conversation with P – she hadn't explained her intention, only impressed on her the import thereof. P tells her that she'd been reading, and relates one of the stories that she'd read. A garden, a plant offering the reader a flower to sniff, the reader plucking the flower then trying to stick it back on and realizing that plants shouldn't be imprisoned, and releasing it back to the wild. She finds food sitting on the table, making a meatball hero with marinara as she recounts the tale.

T, just loud enough to be overheard beyond the cabin door: “Where'd ye ge' th' bread? Wait, where'd ye... no, ne'er min', just be sure tae wipe that bit o'... _sauce_... fra' yore lips an' chin. An' don' be mentionin' anyt'ing aboa' magi'l po'ers tae th' crew; they'd take frigh' o' ye an' be no use tae me.”

Tetra walked out slowly, clomping her feet to ensure that the crew gathered around the door could clear out in time. She acted as if to reassure them that nothing was wrong, blustering that the dead guy had stumbled over something and left again before P could stop him – then mentioned “ _on an unrela'ed no'_ ” that P wouldn't need dinner 'til later.

▲ End alpha ▲

The crew asked about the dead man; Tetra appeared to be shaken and replying awkwardly, “ 'e fell doan the stairs, as I'm shore our good doctor will concur.” They looked to the stairs fifteen feet away, leading only downward to the main deck. Seeing their looks, she repeated herself more firmly.

“Damn shame, too,” she sighed to herself, loudly enough that half of the crew nearby could hear her, “ 'e was the bes' fuy'er o' the lo' o' ye buy a damn' sigh'. I 'ad me some big plans fer 'im.”

=====

“Th' ship 'as a fish an' kelp trawl rig. We're in th' ocean, underway; only an idiot wouldn't trawl f' their next meal. Why d'ye t'ink th' spars and such have those funny things th' gulls are always ge'in' stuck in? It ain't fer looks or shits 'n' giggles, m'lady! Tha's why I require tha' the ship's cook be at least three stars ou' o' five as a sushi chef. It's e'en part o' why we keep a damn' Monkey-bird on board – they're soddin' pains, but they ha' sharp eyes when it comes tae spottin' targets an' trouble, an' they can sniff out minga-melons be'er than a starvin' pig tae truffles. An' ratburgers; ya _ha'_ tae _have_ teriyaki ratburgers onna ship – why d'ye t'ink we keep so many rats aboard? Same t'ing fer the alchemists **2** ,” Tetra rambled on, “bu' jus' wai'l ye ge' a taste o' me bacalaítos. I'll make ye some tonigh', a whole heapin' pile of 'em. If ye ha'n't had 'em before, ye'll t'ink ye've died an gone tae gourmands' heaven!”

While Peach listened to it all on one level, on another level she made a note to herself to get closer to the chef and learn what she could of making sushi and ratburgers. This brought her back to the signature special at Valjean's, and her thoughts meandered to variations on it with whatever might be available shipboard.

=====

Peach followed the sound of a quena insinuating itself throughout the ship. She wended her way between barrels and crates, around ropes and under arms, seeking this elusive thing. The open air and winds, the creaking boards with waves breaking sporadically along the hull, shouted calls of the crew and the sometimes piercing scream of the gulls above, all contributed to confound her search. Eventually she found the bard midway up the foremast. Sitting to listen, his tune delighted her, it was a light-hearted fugue, with a sinuous refrain and multiple themes playing against one another.

When he was done, he laid it down and waited. His name was Saltibartops. Intrigued by his presence, she asked what had drawn him to become a bard.

“Well, my father was a bard. His father was a bard. My mother's father was a bard, my three brothers are bards, four uncles on my father's side are bards...” he began, launching into the tale of his life. As he told her of his studies and travels, he wove a picture full of colors, wares and trinkets for sale, the sounds of the crowds and the scents of succulent meats and sweet pastries wafting from the food stalls, his hands shaping the forms and motions, his postures giving caricatured impressions of various individuals, his voice carrying the accents and breathing life into their words.

“So, this one time at bard camp...” he went on, regaling her with an incident both embarrassing and humorous, ending on a bawdy note.

“...and before I knew it, there I was enrolled in the Academy of the Performing Bards.”

And so it was that several hours had passed without notice, his tale enchanting her with little observations of the cultures that he had encountered, the establishments at which he had performed, the personalities he'd met, and so many things that he had picked up along the way.

“You never know what you might next need to know, so you pack away every little nugget of information, correlate each of them with everything else, and you're a walking encyclopedia in no time with a knack for almost anything that you put your hand to. _This tale is doon, and God save al the rowte!_ ” he finished with a satisfied sigh and a knowing wink.

=====

“What is this, exactly?” Tetra eyed the bread suspiciously.

“Well, you know how I like to bake cakes, right?”

“Go on...”

“I suggested to the ship's cook that I do something nice for the crew. He didn't really think that cake would do the trick though. So we talked some while he showed me his recipe for blueberry-bran muffins, and one thing led to another, and I came up with an idea all my own: carrot-date-nut banana-granola bread with some ginger and the tiniest bit of blackstrap molasses. Try some? Please? You'll like it, I promise!” Peach practically vibrated with excitement, a hopeful look on her face.

“You said that you're no good with anything beyond cake.”

Peach vacillated. “That's true, I'm not, well, I mean, not much yet, but I've learned a bit in my time with you guys, and I'm trying _really hard_. The cook tried it and said that it was really _really_ good, and that he'd make a whole bunch more of it for everyone on the ship tonight, so please try it? I made some tamago for you, too, with some soy and honey...”

=====

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Saltibartops strikes up conversation with Peach. They talk music. He mentions that he'd not heard of Her Illustrious Ladyship, the Marquise Lizspo Rochinbeau. Drops “accidental” half-use of “Your Highn–”, and goes on to explain that everybody on board is nobody in particular. She says to just call her Lizspo.

Saltibartops: ▲ End alpha ▲ I'm sorry to say, Lizspo, but there is no one aboard _Nazgûl_ who doesn't know when you're having intimate relations.

Peach's eyes grew large as her face reddened, and excused herself, scurrying off to seek out Tetra in order to ask if they could insulate the captain's quarters.

=====

▼ Begin alpha ▼

The Vulgar Unicorn. Lunch is a delicate plum-infused sakura saké with lime, large orders of lemon curried chicken with rice; eggrolls with soy sauce and duck sauce; steamed gyoza with soy sauce, chili oil, and vinegar. Laid on ship stores of same afterward, along with pork vindaloo. **3**

“If we were going to collect so much of this anyway, then why didn't we simply have something else for lunch instead?”

“Always taste the wares before purchasing, Princess.” she replied, before taking another unfortunate sip of coffee. ▲ End alpha ▲ The coffee was indeed amazing, just as advertised: amazingly bad flavor, made weak to dilute that, and burned to make up for the weakness. It was also amazing to realize just how much amazement the mind could contain at once, much less from a single experience.

=====

Upon sighting their first quarry, Saltibartops took up his violin again, bringing out deep tones, far more bass and volume than it should have been capable of, practically cello-like. The crew soon picked up the tune and their song resonated with menace.

“ _Yo way oh, hom vah ray,_  
_yo way rah, jerhume Brunnen-G;_  
_way row way, row hanna row,_  
_ah way row ray, jay hanna ray..._

_Vairyo, way oh,_  
_ah hom vah yah ray;_  
_vairyo, ah ray,_  
_jerhume Brunnen-G..._ ”

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Crew picks choicest items, leaves the rest. Same for next two ships. Third is Imperial, Tetra raises red flag. Peach to stay in quarters; fighting spills in. She ends it quickly and messily, gains several notches of crew's respect.

=====

Peach convinces cook to make helado de coco; slowly wins over the crew, someplace halfway between little sister and mascot.

Crew shows her the ropes, furling and so forth. Mere slip, but pulls her weight without complaint.

She talks with chef about cooking in general, and he tells her of how the ship distills her own fresh water, with the side benefit of all the fresh sea salt they'll ever need, which leads to her teaching Peach how to make bife de tartaruga, and cautions her about chelonitoxism. This leads to a series of in-depth lessons on the risks of metal poisoning from fish, shark biomagnification of toxins, fugu, blue ringed octopus, cone snails, and many more. Peach has an idea for butter and wine braised leeks with lemon sole and dill in a chili and beer batter, to go with the turtle steaks.

As the days and weeks continued their slow roll into summer, she gained her sea legs. She began more rapidly than in the salt marshes and desert plains to read the weather as the wind blew and the waves curled. She learned the ways of the sea life all around them.

▲ End alpha ▲

=====

While there was always something necessary for the ship, Peach found that she was supernumerary. As well, there was always something to learn, but she often found her mind drifting to knots, now that so much of her life was centered on things nautical.

One thing led to another, and she began examining the patterns of geometric figures' properties – how many vertices and edges and so forth she might expect to find in triangles and squares and circles in each dimension. The circles posed an issue, so she set them aside for a while. She could see the sequences building up, and could work out some of the rudimentary governing equations in her head as she went about daily ship's business, but soon found it to be too aggravating.

That evening, she set down to a log all that she had so far worked out. The squares presented the simplest data set, all in powers of two, and each row building on the preceding row in a simple recursion, so she began with them. Zelda was reading comfortably, and was quite encouraging of her pursuing this; she didn't really understand just what Peach was doing, but she grasped that it was nagging at her mind and that playing with these numbers was fun for her and made her happy, and so brought her a few snacks and juice and ramen and retired to her own entertainment.

Peach couldn't really explain it to herself, either. She just knew that she wanted to work out the underlying principles directly, without relying on known formulae. She knew that she could reach them, but she wanted to _truly grok_ why each step proceeded as it did, to _feel_ the dimensionalization.

It was slow going at first, simply filling in cell after cell in her array, the top row's cell values for vertices being nothing but twice the value of the dimension, the second row for edges being a little more interesting in that they were each twice their preceding cell to the left plus the cell above them; after that it was just a repetition of the 2L+U recursion pattern. Reaching ten dimensions gave her enough material to start from, though it didn't really gel until she'd extended it a few more dimensions. At twenty, the whole was clearly set.

Once Peach had worked out the equations for the first five dimensions, she began to see a pattern developing within the set of equations themselves. After some juggling of her conventions, “n” found itself the key to the whole and she had a final meta-equation for how many k-elements one would find for a square of any number of n-dimensions – it didn't matter the number of dimensions to the element or the square, she could solve for it quickly and easily with this; best of all, it even extended continuously to non-integer values, such as the number of e-dimensional elements that you'd find in a pi-dimensional square, where before she could answer only trivial special cases such as how many dimensions a square must have if it possessed six vertices, or how many vertices a 2.5849625-dimensional square must have. Her eureka moment resulted in a spontaneous and almost unrealized squealing outburst of happiness that startled Zelda, but as she turned to extend her table to higher dimensions, Zelda returned to her book with a smile.

This had taken a few nights of fiddling. Her days were still occupied learning whatever she could to be useful aboard ship, and her evenings weren't all math oriented, not to mention that she was breaking unfamiliar ground and wanted to be sure of each result before taking it a step further.

She found a satisfying symmetry developing by the time that she'd filled in the table to twenty dimensions and glanced over it as a whole. It had escaped her until she'd considered working out the equations vertically for each dimension, rather than horizontally for each element: the diagonals mirrored the data of the rows. Not quite the masterstroke that she'd been seeking, but almost an Easter egg nestled there awaiting her notice as an enticing goody – she'd have to work out a set of equations that took the mirroring into account, but shelved it for the moment as a later project.

She then sought to repeat the process on triangles.

Having worked out triangles quickly and easily enough for the first three rows, she'd found herself stymied for the next two weeks. Ignoring binomial coefficients, the triangles had turned out to be quite an issue, requiring that she work out ways to solve for summing triangular numbers in n-dimensions. She bypassed the issue once she saw that the triangles' values reiterated the squares' 2L+U pattern. The number of vertices was always simply n+1, though the number of edges took a detour when she jumped ahead, distracted by triangular areas' l(l+1)/2 pairing (which led her down a further sidetrack for a while, trying to find a universally applicable equation for factorials), but then it grew much more complicated when she had to work out the equation for DIM 3. Eventually, she settled for a limited solution involving summed squares; the solution was awkward, she could hear Sonic calling it a kludge, and she found it frustrating.

She could feel a more generalized problem behind the two, but she couldn't really see how to extend her results to other Platonic solids beyond degenerate cases such as DIM 0 or DIM 1, much less to non-reifiable figures between them, such as a regular polyhedron with five faces. It seemed briefly that she glimpsed it as she treated the figures' duals – triangles matching themselves, cubes with octahedra, dodecahedra with icosahedra – but it didn't pan out, leaving the 24-cells and 120-cells alone for the moment. At least she'd had fun with stretching the centers of a segment, square, and octahedron outward bidirectionally, almost like the triangular figures' single center-stretch.

Taking a break from triangles, she turned her attention to geometric numbers' progression as a more generalized approach to DIM 2 figures. Starting with simple, familiar polygons, it didn't take her long at all to reduce them to a gnomon of length l and (k-1)-many triangular wedges of length l-minus-1. Then she found herself facing much the same issue in higher dimensions as she had with triangular contents, made slightly worse by the issue of tiling a volume with tetrahedra (she considered briefly the possibility of packing them in a non-Euclidean space, and that would probably be interesting, but would nevertheless simply steer away even further from the basic thrust). She wondered if she should take a different tack and study the functions that gave their dihedral angles instead, but it just didn't appeal to her.

Seeing squares and triangles originally as translated and rotated line segments, and now instead as special cases through the filter of triangular wedges, she decided not to worry about circles' lack of easily identifiable analogous defining bits (especially after taking the rotation of a segment around either end versus the midpoint and comparing those with the rotation of a disc around an axial diameter, arguments of pi and tau aside) and simply looked at the equations for their shells and their contents. Both the shell and the contents were split into two interwoven series each, and all were governed by multiples of 2πr2/n. The power of r scaling with n was interesting, and the pi multiple being n for dimensions 2n or 2n+1 was playfully quirky, but she found the fractional opening multiple to be irritating, and what she found between seven and eight Euclidean embedding dimensions had her shaking; at just a hair above seven and one quarter dimensions, it seemed that the Riemannian surface sphere (codimension one) reached its maximum (not long after that, she noticed a similar effect at two embedding dimensions lower for the interior ball). It all stemmed from the interaction of two patterns – one simple one in which the surface's denominator multiplied by the dimension gave the contents' denominator, and the numerators being the nth power of two for the nth odd dimension; these cascaded into pretty effects, such as a surprising chess-knight-like pattern (reminiscent of 2L+U...) wherein the content's denominator in a given odd-dimension was always the shell's denominator two dimensions later. The even dimensions weren't nearly so well behaved though: the numerator was always two, while the denominator refused to give her anything useful until she'd reached ten dimensions; once she'd cracked that, she was heady with victory, sure that she could find a way to tie them all together into a single governing meta-equation. The whole of this broke down into several possible ways to extend the shell-and-content concepts to equations involving girth and such in one direction and... some kind of size-thing for n+x dimensional properties that she could grasp only abstractly, such as the literal area of a line segment, or the literal volume of a disc... but in either case, her every attempt so far collapsed into mathematically cute but useless seeming-nonsense within a dimension or two, and she feared that she'd have to resort to one gamma function or another if she wished to extend this further to arbitrary negative **4** and complex numbers. Then the exponents caught her eye, and in a flash she recalled something that she'd run into in her birthday books, and she and Tails had pored over at length – derivatives – and it all came together in a rush, a pure and perfect moment of satori; it was all in the integration (and integration by tau, she realized in afterthought, giving away the obvious continuation of divisors), it was screamingly obvious, looking at them that way. She could _see_ the n-balls and n-spheres in a palimpsest of interactions; she could feel the equations' evolution like monks on ascending and descending stairs. She'd started by building her circles by rotating a radius around its origin two-pi-many radii, _almost implying_ a vector, but everything changed if she shifted to a line segment rotated around its midpoint tau-over-two diameters (invoking a spin-2 symmetry).

Sharing all of this with Zelda, giddy with excitement, she bounced around their cabin, babbling rapidly about pi and tau and wondering if there weren't some simple and obvious way to tie the polytopes all together, even the circles. Zelda was caught up in the excitement, dancing around with her and grinning manically for Peach's insights, though following all of one word in ten.

=====

▼ Begin alpha ▼ Sail under black flag, raid a few merchants. ▲ End alpha ▲ By a remarkable coincidence, the ships all happened to belong to the resistance, under various fronts, and were all insured by the Imperial Crown. The crew didn't need to know this though, and so approached matters by stealth and speed. Stealth was limited to opportunity of small islands and coincidental weather, which left most matters to speed and shepherding techniques.

The ship's fog came as needed, blanketing vast swathes of water, redirecting portions of the ship's image to multiple points, making firing solutions against her more luck than calculation.

Her sails stole the wind from all about.

▼ Begin alpha ▼ The black flag raised holds sway over the crewmen, lending strength and speed to their bodies and wills.

Summer passed, and whispers of a Klabautermann made their rounds.

Tetra: ▲ End alpha ▲ Those were shakedown runs, tae ge' all the kinks ou' o' our tactics. Now we 'it a real target – Koopa's transport. We rig 'er different an' sail un'er the Triforce 'til we're in the right wa'ers, then re-rig an' 'oise th' red flag.

=====

“Wait, _how_ many other ships?” Peach asked.

“Five or six. It varies some,” Tetra replied.

“Huh,” Peach smiled, a playful look on her face as if scheming, “so I'm dating a commodore? Just wait 'til I tell the girls – they'll be so envious!”

“Well, no' tae brag, but technically, I might just qualify as an admiral...”

=====

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Tetra holds Commander's Call.

Explains that under the red flag, just as before under the black, the ship's maces still hold great strength, but that furthermore the cutlasses and daggers now hold a viper's bite. She holds back the fact that the red flag holds powers beyond those of the black – that it holds the power to turn luck itself, to some extent; that it instills terror within foes who see it, and despair eats into the hearts of foes within its range; that it can call forth more than mere pea-soup fogs, but gales and small maelstrøms as well.

Peach learns from the cook how to make pralz and taiblet, and particularly qottab, remembering how much Zelda had enjoyed the oznei Haman.

▲ End alpha ▲

=====

  
“ _Toad...?_ ” Peach asked, flummoxed over seeing him, sure that it couldn't possibly be so.

“–of Toad Hall, your highness; yes ma'am.”

The Toad stood over the corpse for a moment, then suddenly remembered whom he was talking with, kneeling immediately. His red-spotted head shone with sweat from their recent endeavors as the clamor of battle beyond the room reduced gradually.

“Get up!” she hissed, “Quickly, before anyone sees you like that!”

“Your highne–”

“ _Tsst!_ ” she looked around sharply to see that no one had heard him, “Please don't call me that – not here.”

Glancing at her surrounds and then at her own garb, she waved a hand nonchalantly, finishing with “... _pirate!_ ”

Withdrawing his épée-sabre hybrid from the body as he stood, he assumed a guarded neutral position, awaiting her instruction. The hole in the body's upper back didn't bleed much, smoking somewhat profusely instead, as the swordsman's weapon **5** had partly cauterized the area with a nerve-frying electrical jolt of several amperes.

_Odd_ , thought Peach, _the shape is normal, but I don't recall their ever having used electroshock before. Why are they doing that?_ When _did they start doing that?_

In a rush of breath, her words tumbled forth, “Look, it's a long story and kind of complicated, and it's truly wonderful to see you again after so very long, and I really really want to know how everyone's doing, but right now isn't a good time for all of that, and I can't let anyone on the ship know who I am, and please please please don't let anyone else know that I'm here!”

Toad looked relieved.

“I take it then that the Imperial Marine here was _indeed_ not rushing toward you in order to spirit you away from this heinous den of pirates?”

She shook her head slowly and in deadly serious fashion.

“And the crew...” he gestured.

“Oh, they're pirates. Except for the Captain, sort of, and maybe the cook... and probably the bard too, though I'm really not entirely certain of him – but the rest are all pirates, yes.”

He considered this.

“I see. And you wish to remain... _anonymous_.”

Peach nodded fervently.

“Of your own free will.”

Again she nodded.

“Then I must see to it that you do so. I will join the crew and stand guard by your side against all comers.”

“I would so dearly love that, Toad, but you mustn't ruin your own career just for me!”

He glanced down at his uniform. That of an Imperial Marine.

“Highne– Prin– Pea–”

“Liszpo. The Marquise Lizspo Rochambeau.”

“Your... _Ladyship_ , I am, and always have been, of the Mushroom Kingdom first. My duty is to you above all others.”

Tetra chose that moment to rush in, cutlass drawn. The bodies on the floor and their positions told the story, the same being true of Peach's and Toad's otherwise-relaxed stances.

Toad read Tetra's stance in turn, as well as Peach's, and stayed cautiously still, assuming parade rest.

“That first one's hers,” he nodded.

_That first one_ was a bloody mess. His limbs were broken in multiple places, his belly even now distending from internal hemorrhages, bruising showing on most of the exposed skin. It took a moment for her to register that his head was facing backward.

Peach gave a tentative smile, part nervous uncertainty and part proud self-confidence.

“Bare handed again, eh?”

Peach gave a nervous shrug and nodded.

“ _W-e-ll..._ I didn't want to _hurt_ him.”

Tetra's mouth slid open as her eyebrows knitted, then she blinked firmly, trying to process this, and finally cast a glance to Toad as if to ask _Do you see what I have to contend with?_

Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, he returned the look with one of a sympathetic _Yup, she's always been this way..._

Sheathing her cutlass, Tetra strode to Peach and drew her into a tight embrace.

“Oh, Nayru, I'm so sorry baby. It was bloody hell oat there, an' I couldnae ge' here any sooner.”

Peach stroked her hair and patted her back as Toad stood carefully at ease, eyes front, face devoid of expression.

Releasing Peach, Tetra turned to him.

“You're Imperial,” she stated.

He nodded briskly.

“Aren't you a little short for an Imperial Marine?” she wondered absently.

“You're a Toad,” she continued, directing her attention to him once more.

Again an affirmative.

Tetra reached her conclusion quickly, neither thought nor calculation required in this instance.

“Then yore tae return tae yore du'y station forthwith an' report the situation. We sough' tae engage yore services; you acted as if so inclined, an' slipped ship once a storm bese' us,” she informed him crisply, “are we clear?”

“Yes, your Imper–”

“ _Tsst!_ ” Peach shushed him again.

“Yes... _Captain_?” he offered.

Tetra sighed, “Ehm, Admiral, in truth – but aye, anyt'in' but what you'd ha' been sayin' man.”

Beyond that, his half-spoken honorific went unnoticed.

**O ~~~ O**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **1** Nazgûl: Zelda won Nazgûl from the original Tetra in a card game (Dragon Poker, with some elements of Fizzbin). Tetra had gotten shitty about it, and so they dueled, but eventually cut a deal; Zelda glamoured Tetra permanently and took the title for herself, leaving Tetra now able to retire in relative anonymity and embrace a more leisurely pursuit with some wealth previously invested under the name of Bonny Anne.
> 
> She's a galleon with a low charged bow, no forecastle, and a high stern. Double-hulled against breach, twin-keeled for a shallow draft with a recurve to their prows for improved water-breaking. Crew 140; 62 scorpions, 48 mangoneau; cruising speed of 9 knots (2x-4x, in favorable conditions). Detachable shock-mounted ram in front, below waterline; 2 corvi in front, multiple boarding ramps along sides. Cargo capacity of >300 short tons (>267.9- metric tonnes).
> 
> **2** Alchemists: Firebombs of fat, beeswax, olive oil, crushed sulfur and phosphorus, charcoal, naphtha, ammonia, and fine powdered aluminum, iron, and magnesium. Tanks of caustic acids and alkalis. Store of ammonium iodide.
> 
> **3** Food stores: Assuming precisely 2,000 kcal per day and an equal distribution of fat (9 kcal*gram), protein, and carb (4 kcal*gram, each) – and no indigestible addenda – you're looking at a minimum of 353(-) grams (12.5- oz) of food per person per day (distro aside, fat would still be 222.2 g [7.8+ oz], and protein/carb 500 g [18- oz]) in order to meet kilocalorie needs; this is ignoring the question of micronutrients. An average full stomach is quoted as four pounds (1.8+ kg) of food per day.
> 
> Accordingly, a crew of 140 would likely need well over 49.4(+) kg ±35% (109 lb ±35%) per day just to meet the kilocalorie requirements to perform their duties. Presumably, they'd require >560 pounds (>254 kg) per day to feel full.
> 
> This means that whether taken on all at once, or picked up at ports en route, or self-supplied by fishing and [onboard] gardening, just a 4 month journey alone would therefore necessarily require 6.6+ short tons ±35% (6 metric tonnes ±35%) for kilocalorie needs, or >34 short tons ±35% (>31 metric tonnes ±35%) in order to feel full. For perspective, that's equivalent to ~2 (kcal) or ~11 (fullness) African forest elephants ±35%, or ~1 (kcal) or ~5 (fullness) African bush or Asian elephants ±35%.
> 
> Nazgûl's cargo capacity of >300 short tons (>267.9- metric tonnes) means that she could well carry this much with ease and still perform other functions. Prices of food can vary immensely, but as a baseline, if we assume an equivalent of $1 per pound of average “food” (which could be off by a factor of 3 or more), then a full store of ~35 short tons (~4 months of basically-full feeding) would then cost ~$70k (*/ 3+). Clearly, though Zelda's daily life doesn't reflect high living, the resistance overall isn't operating on an entirely shoestring budget.
> 
> **4** Gamma: yes, she would run into the issue with negative integers, and presumably the double factorial workaround for negative odd integers, but no, I've no idea if she pursued this. My head-canon (man that sounds so weird to me, since I'm the author) pictures her digging through the books and later talking with Tails about it all, and getting into Taylor series stuff (probably hitting Gaussian primes and Hurwitz quaternions en route to octonions (etc.) and E7 & E8 [sphere packing] w.r.t. DIM 7.2569... spheres and 5.2569... balls).
> 
> The problem with gamma is that it's not unique. There are an infinite number of ways to analytically extend the factorial function validly to the complex domain, so which gamma do you choose, and by which criteria?
> 
> **5** Electro-sword: it actually cycles between 0.15 A and 15 A, thus often causing death by fibrillation and providing the psychological effect to others witnessing the seared flesh.


	6. Home... home, again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the accompanying playlist / soundtrack, please see:  
>  ▐► <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPYG6DgnCJHFlFe-u_MuZiew>
> 
> Foodies: yes, there are recipes available for a good number of the foods mentioned herein. You can find them in “Appendix F: Recipes” (and some few in the commentary / annotation) of the .pdf of “Seize the Deity” at  
>  ▐► <https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BG7P_sVezz8Dn5b8js_34yeAjSBhfN0v>
> 
> ▼ Begin alpha ▼  
>  This chapter is unfinished as yet, and so there are portions that break the usual narrative flow, being outlined rather than fully fleshed out. Please forgive these, as I thought that it might be better to at least present them as-is than to make readers wait until I finally clean it up entirely.  
>  ▲ End alpha ▲
> 
> ▐► **For notes on how to change fonts and font colors and so forth, please see** [Fonts, and colors, and work skins, oh my!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28934610)
> 
>   
> 
> 
> * * *

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Giant mushrooms in Kokiri forest (a swollen version of norm), which engulfs Lake Hylia. Fridays here, living with their clan. Don't visit to keep from drawing attention to it.

▲ End alpha ▲

“ 'sgood ta see the Scooby Gang back together,” Sonic smiled.

“I missed you guys so much! Ohh, it's so good to smell you guys again!” Peach hurled herself into him and Tails, pulling them tight into a group hug.

“Ya' sayin' we stink, P?” he asked, mock indignation curling his brow.

Ruru squealed gleefully and dove into Peach's breasts for a hug.

Peach missed his humor entirely.

“No,” opening her mouth slightly, lifting her face and leaning her head forward a touch to better sniff the air, “I mean that,” pointing with her eyes at the air around her.

“The pack-scent,” she insisted.

Ruru cocked her right brow, squinted her left eye, and tilted her head to the right, “Eto... _cho_ -tto ma-tte...” she said as she peered and poked at Peach's nose, inspecting it as if looking for a secret door.

Sonic blinked rapidly, then glanced at Tails, who was grinning away happily in Peach's arms as she held him on her hip as if he were a toddler.

“You can smell that?” he asked her.

“Oh, yeah,” Tails realized, pulling his head back and tilting it in surprise, “Peach is half-Human, isn't she? I guess it _is_ kinda weird, huh?”

Zelda nudged Peach in the ribs. Tilting her head at Sonic, she wiggled her eyebrows enthusiastically to Peach and said “G'head – brag about your cake-muffin-bread!”

Sonic looked back to Peach, “What about... _the bread_?”

=====

Sonic was lecturing Peach as they prepared for dinner, “So I scored us some pai lo 'n' fresh ginger at this shop, man. Yer gonna love this shit. I dunno how good it'll go with this sauce I brought back from the Wolfen Nations though – an' Tails got in real good with the old medicine woman shaman chick, so I got ta watch her make this stuff, so yer gonna learn how ta do it, too. Some real good shit, but they might be too different ta balance easily.”

“When were you there? You didn't mention that!”

“Well, y'know, with one thing 'n' another... when we dropped you guys off at Freeport, we took a detour north. We make better time on our own, so there was plenty ta spare, an' no fear o' danger, so we figured why not. Anyways, while we were there, we got some shit they call buffalo sauce, on account o' the fact that they use it on what they call buffalo. Not real imaginative, I know. You should see the rest o' their names – Waterford, Fish Flats, Scrum, even a place called Buffalo fer that exact reason, which is where we got this stuff incidentally, an' lemme tell ya, those ain't buffalo like I ever seen, triceratops maybe, or some kinda megatherium-thing, but not buffalo, maybe I should call 'em tritheralo, same difference – point is, it's freakin' awesome sauce, an' it really does go great with buffalo, or tritheralo, or whatever, but we could prob'ly make do wit' chicken or cow or some'n.”

“The Wolfen Nations. I've always wanted to go there; it sounds so romantic!” she smiled and glanced over toward Zelda before continuing her thought, “Not many buffalo around here, I suppose...”

“Yeah, yer right, Z'd love it there; Wolfen performances are schlock – nuttin' but melodrama, pantomime, choruses, 'n' schmaltz, an' they're kinda sophomoric – but O.K. once ya get that, an' then there's their music – not my thing, but a catchy upbeat I think ya'd really like, they call it ' _swing_ ' – and there're plenty o' good fights. It's their idea of entertainment ta get together a party-war – not a ' _war party_ ,' a'ight, a ' _party-war_ ' – an' just go balls-out wit' whoever's up for it; usually it's just more Wolfen, but they got a pretty good thing goin' with the Scrum Dwarves **1** on their western edge over by Badder Country. Kick each other's asses fer a bit, burn the dead, then trade a few goods between the groups an' get roarin' drunk together, cullin' their respective herds o' kangarat and capybara ta' roast. 'course, them 'n' the Dwarves are generally both all staggerin' drunk before they even _start_ the fights, so mostly it's just everybody tossin' blankets over conked-out bodies ta sleep it off, then watchin' an' hecklin' as a few o' the least-drunk take a few clumsy swings at each other. It's all real nice an' peaceful, act'chly – though ya gotta keep an eye out fer Tequila Monsters.”

_Peaceful? Yeah, an' more civilized than this crap._

“But as fer the buffalo... P, this is Hyrule! If it's any kinda food, you can get it here. Only prob'm is maybe the price. S'pose we could liberate some though...”

Peach was still lost in thoughts of the east as he started eyeballing the meat market down the street.

“Ya never did tell me about that weird hook-thing on yer belt. What gives, anyway?”

“This?” she asked, lifting a hook shaped device for his inspection, “It's a cesta. It's used in this game where people toss a ball around, and it's really fun, but kind of dangerous. Well, that got me thinking, and I realized that even with as lethal as a sling can be, it can only get up to around one hundred miles per hour, and these could be even better, so I redesigned one in wood for a little more weight, added a few vents to reduce wind resistance, and a few other modifications, and it turns out that with just a little practice you can launch stones at up to one hundred eighty-eight miles per hour **2**! I'm thinking about trying one with a little more give at the tip, and maybe a slightly different curve overall, to see if I can eke out just a little more power from it, and maybe I can add a groove to launch darts better without messing up the stone throwing – though you know, now that I think about it, if I were to simply dimple the stones' surfaces, then I could reduce their overall friction...”

“Cool shit. An' what's wit' that weird horn?”

Peach's eyes lit up, “It's a vuvuzela – I can totally disable threats at one hundred twenty seven decibels without hurting them too much! I got the idea from talking with the ship's bard.”

“...an' the three mouths?”

“Oh, that's to create a chord – a harmonic resonance. Together, they cause a harsh, grating effect that unnerves anyone who hears it. Much more effective that way.”

Sonic tilted his head at this, impressed with her results and wondering just what other tricks she might have up her sleeve.

“Nice one there, P. Very nice.”

▼ Begin alpha ▼

“Have you ever seen people torching cheese?” she asked him as they passed an open front restaurant, “Softening it up like mozzarella, but using gruyère instead, or Emmental?”

“Well, sorta. They usually just let it face a fire an' sit aroun' talkin' while it softens up... hey, yeah – an' that might... oh hey, I got it, a'ight, we use the cheese as the openin' course, right, throw the buffalo sauce in a dippin' bowl fer chicken – easier than riskin' stirrin' up shit with a five finger discount gone bad – along with this _other_ sauce I brought back, some shit called hoisin, you'll really go fer that one, especially with charred chicken or seared duck... man, the Wolfen did this crazy shit with air under the ducks' skins and you wouldn't believe the results, an' we can maybe work up the pai lo inta some kind o' sauce too an' throw that in a third bowl. Anyway, the best part is Tails got the actual recipes offa the ol' lady at this one camp, so we can always make more! I couldn't really get most o' what they said, but he seemed ta pick it up O.K.. So, waddya think?”

“I think that it needs some balance. That's a lot of meat and sauce.”

“Nice. Good observation. Howsabout some orange sauce, maybe dip some broccoli in the cheese, throw down some Brussels sprouts 'n' more cheese on the side?”

“A fondue? We'll need some carbohydrates too, and your vegetables are all green.”

“Uh-huh, and?”

“And... so we need to stop by a green grocer for some red-orange vegetables, shoots, roots, and so forth. The colors indicate a general pattern of nutrition contents.”

“You got it babe!”

“See! I told you that I was paying attention.”

“Humph. O.K., so sniff this pouch o' pai lo then,” Sonic said as he withdrew a packet from his satchel, “an' tell me if ya don't think it maybe wouldn't go better in a pork 'n' shrimp dumpling stew, 'steada as just another sauce; toss in some peppers an' see where we go from there...”

“ – and we could pick up some sea salt, too!”

“ _Smoked_ sea salt...?” he asked.

Peach grinned with a decadent anticipation, twitching her nose, “Ash-smoked sea salt... with just a dash of truffles?”

“ _Noice_ ,” he replied, “snootchie bootchies. Maybe marinate some chicken wit' some strong zesty Italian dressin' an' a decent hint o' mayo, toss it in the pan an' throw some really thick Italian dressin' onta that, 'n' just let 'er bake...”

They continued to discuss the possibilities as they shopped, and she gradually talked him into a light and simple stir fry with zucchini and matsutake to make the flavors pop in the main course, followed by parfaits for dessert. This would require a side trip to the Wolfen specialties shop for rice vinegar and sesame oil, but it was certain to be worth the effort. He, in turn, suggested following this with Turkish coffee, and she was quite taken with the idea – grounds so fine as to be practically dust, multiple boilings... it enchanted her just to imagine it, leading to visions of fairy tale lands of floating dandelions, which led her to suggest cinnamon and hazelnut confectioners' sugar zeppole to go with it.

This reminded her of another dessert that she'd been working on, about which she'd been wanting to compare notes with him: shahi tukda – toasted brioche soaked in a simple saffron syrup with Amrut rum, then coated with a cardamom rabri and sprinkled with a mix of cashews, pecans, pistachios, rose petals, and sorghum – paired with a nicely aged Madeira. They opted to hold off on the zeppole as treats to top off a midnight surprise-snack of salmon lightly seasoned with pink sea salt and truffles, though this prompted some further tentative plans for the next day's lunch of cod with lemon and tartar sauce.

The meal plan that they ended up with bore little resemblance to his original suggestion, but this didn't bother him at all since he hadn't had his heart set on it nor had it been his goal. She had indeed been studying while away, and it showed.

Sonic had to smile.

_She's thinkin' in a lot broader terms now, integratin' flavors across themes an' in counterpoint on the fly, an' she spotted the crappy bits 'n' spoke up. Cool. Nah: way fuckin' cool. Wonder if Z's noticed any o' this..._

▲ End alpha ▲

=====

“ _Squishy-poos?_ ” Sonic asked, unsure himself of whether he were simply curious, or mildly teasing, or worried for her.

The moon was still low to the horizon and the sun was just setting. Crickets were beginning to chirp their romantic overtures as the last of the fireflies began their nightly rounds over the goldenrod and milkweed in desperate bids to find mates. The few Poe-spirits **3** in the area had learned to keep a wary distance, their ethereal forms wavering gently hither and thither across the field.

They sat at the edge of a pond, right at the mouth of a stream, fishing lines to either side. A few baskets of fish sat nearby, and one entirely of eels, with the net drying from their earlier haul. They had quite a few frogs bound up in one of the nets, and they'd had to improvise with the crayfish. Peach had expressed hopes of trying her hand at jellied eel soon, and had an eye toward garlic and ginger with a little coriander; at the moment, she was collecting alder wood for the fish.

“Aye,” Zelda replied with gusto, her teeth showing in her smile, her eyes keen as she conjured memories of the previous night, “She's soft and squidgy, and jiggles in all of the right places.”

“Whatever. I ain't gonna ride ya. You've lightened up a lot, Z, it's just... man, ya' gotta be yankin' my chain, right?”

“I thought that this was what you wanted to see – her and me together?”

“Yeah, I do. You guys're good fer each other, an' I'm glad to see you finally happy. Just don't lose yerself, y'know?”

He eyeballed his now-empty bottle.

“Shit. Beer me?”

She reached into the stream for another of the local-brew ale.

“...you think that I'm rushing it?” Zelda asked as she handed it to him.

“No, I don't think shit. Fuckin' mazel tov, man... but I still see ya' divin' in headlong as usual, not payin' attention ta fuck-all else.”

He took a sip and made a foul face.

“Remind me again why we got this crap?”

“It's all that they had,” she shrugged.

“Fuckin' piss-water with bubbles. Might go O.K. wit' P's étouffée tonight, though. An' hey, what's with the frogs in Hyrule, anyway? It's like they _wanna_ get gigged or some'n. Ain't like that nowheres else.”

Zelda could only shrug.

“Anywhere around here we can maybe get some asparagus 'n' lemon? I wanna pair some wit' yakisoba an' Tso chicken, ta balance things out.”

“Back where we got the ale, perhaps.”

“Hell, why not. Let's jet. We can call it a beer run, an' get another case or two o' this sorry excuse fer shit while we're at it. Drink enough of it an' maybe we'll forget ta notice how much it sucks, huh?”

=====

Passing by several waterfront taverns, Zelda snorted derisively at one.

Peach had been admiring it, rather taken by the décor. The sign was marvelous, with a shimmering brocade all along the edges, and a magnificent deformed sea beast standing hauriant guardant across the board – legs ending in cloven hooves, tentacles from the torso, a long serpentine fish tail and a broad mouth with gnashing teeth; peculiarly, there were small radiant horns curling up from just above its forelocks, with more beams shining from its fœtid-looking beard and barbels. It was carrying a tray piled high with food.

“It's the Bull and Scones, Princess. A tourist trap franchise dive. One in every waterway village, and several in most waterfront towns. All of the barmaids have parrot-dolls strapped to their shoulders and their blouses unstrapped, with a limited vocabulary tae match their limited cloth. The only thing ye might find of worth there would be rarebit or steak and kidney pie – and even that's more than made up for by a leaky roof over the bar! Well, those and maybe some half-decent fish 'n' chips, unless you count crabs as a good option.”

“Mmm, I love crab!”

“Not _these_ crabs, ye don't.”

Peach was left to puzzle over this as they continued along the wharf.

Whereas the boards had been free of warps and splinters near the Bull and Scones, and the piles had hinted of pitch and sea breeze, the area that they now entered took a decided turn for the seedier. Yard-long warps and six-inch splinters seemed to comprise the bulk of the boards, with divots to swallow your foot for good measure, odd pools of pitch smeared haphazardly at random points, and the air smelled only of dead seaweed, rotting fish, stagnant brine, and streams of urine and vomit, with an afterthought of week-old cooking oil that had begun its life rancid. Even the sunlight felt as if it were a miasma that harbored untoward plans for all present, including the small hordes of sickly pigeons that gave the impression of skulking and plotting.

▼ Begin alpha ▼

The Pigswain's Eye.

Local lang Low Imperial Common.

Ask after three jolly pigeons, meet w/ orig Tetra. Band plays on wire-caged dais in back as they wait.

▲ End alpha ▲

“ _A fugitive has been away so long;_  
_a thousand years, and now he thinks of home._  
_The lawmen are waiting in the wings_  
_to put him in chains upon his return._

_Emptiness,_  
_his bitterness_  
_is gone..._  
_journey on_  
_to the eternal_  
_reward._

_It's a long way to go_  
_– a black angel at your side –_  
_It's a long way to go_  
_– a black angel at your side..._ ”

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Ex-pirate now a smuggler, pays the bills; tavern connects to pawn shop. Bonny Anne; goes by Capt Christabel Pike these days (S floored, BA notes that she'd gone by Roberta April for a while, S mutters to himself “Of course...”), has pretty-boy named Mary with cat ears – a Nekomusuko, as it were. Like looking into a mirror from the past, though her features were somewhat more masculine than Tetra's, her skin a few shades lighter with just a tinge of sunburn to it, and her hair now bore a reddish hue.

▲ End alpha ▲

  
Sonic's eyes darted to the cappuccino machine in Anne's office. Ever ready to have his hopes smashed, he immediately strode to the counter, opening drawers and cabinet doors.

_Badda-bing_ , he snapped his fingers as he clapped his other hand over them.

“Hey! P! C'mere! She's actually got – no-shit – _cappuccino_ -flavored cappuccino! Some'n I just can't find fer shit with all the flavored crap everywhere I look. I mean, seriously, the shit I run into all over the place ain't coffee, it's freakin' dessert!”

“Ooh! I forgot to tell you! We saw a whole bunch of dolphins and porpoises and things, and they were so sweet!” Peach's enthusiasm was always contagious, and her abrupt non sequitur shortly had Sonic rapt in her tale of oceanic discoveries.

He downed two cappuccinos in rapid succession as she went on about the coral reefs and starfish, and all of the beautiful fish that they'd eaten and how she'd felt bad about that but had eaten them anyway, especially after the chef had shown her how to properly perform ikejime to spike their hindbrain for a humane death, and these cute little penguins that let her play with them, and some sea serpents that she'd spotted along with some whales and even a couple of really pretty kirin with shimmering rainbow scales, and she'd really hoped to see some Mermaids – just the nice ones, though, not the others – and how Zelda had had _Nazgûl_ dock for a while at an uncharted island full of mangroves so that she could show her how to ride a histoikthys **4** with some seals, and then they'd gotten to swim in the storm surge of a hurricane, and there had even been a lioness who'd been separated from one of her cubs by the storm and an elephant that had swum far out to the rocks beyond the lagoon to carry the screaming cub back in her trunk...

“Hang on a sec there. You went _swimmin'_ in a hurricane's freakin' _storm surge_?”

“Mm-hmm! It sounded like fun – and it was!”

Caught between several reactions and complete incomprehension, it was all that he could do to shake his head to clear it.

All of this took only a few minutes before they rejoined the others at the table with a couple of huge cappuccinos loaded heavily with amaretto and a tray holding a large pile of anise-almond and chocolate-pistachio cantucci and rum-brandy fudge-balls

with coconut shavings – though all told, it felt more as if twenty minutes had passed.

Peach saw no threat in Captain Pike, but still sat down quite proprietarily next to Zelda, rubbing against her just a little – enough to mark her territory at least – then carefully removing a piece of lint that wasn't there.

It took Sonic a moment to reset his ears to less-gushing speech.

As Peach picked out a few cantucci and fudge-balls, he turned to Pike and asked “Ya maybe got any cannoli or tiramisù 'round here? An' I don't mean no _freakin' cream horn crap_. Or how 'bout some o' them sugar-glazed cinnamon-honey rolls wit' ground-up nuts?”

She glanced at Mary and gave a sharp jerk of her chin to retrieve some of each.

“Grazie,” Sonic added as Mary turned away.

“And some finger sandwiches and prune-and-cheese danishes too, please?” Tails hastened to add before she could make the door, bringing a smile of anticipation to Ruru's face.

Sonic thought about this and chimed in, “Just not from Missus Miggins's pie and coffee shop, eh?”

Pike's gaze returned to Zelda, then shifted to Sonic, and back.

Raising her glass, she smiled and said “Sláinte mhaith.”

All raised theirs in turn as Zelda replied “Sláinte agatsa.”

“Right. So what trouble comes a-callin' my way this time, cailín?” she asked with backed vowels and rolled “r”s, her smile holding a hint of resigned weariness.

Zelda and Sonic exchanged looks.

“Anne, c'mon now... why wouldja think _we're_ any trouble, huh?”

She rolled her eyes at him.

“Is always trouble, with Moose and Squirrel.”

▼ Begin alpha ▼

As the afternoon wore on, they brought one another up to date over plates of baked ziti with ricotta, sausage with peppers, and a glazed ham. BA says that the Wolfen have been trading around Freeport with Hrulgin and Algroth meat and bones; trading at all, much less these materials, shocks Z. The monsters have been coming down from the mountains, and the Wolfen are only too glad to reduce their surplus population. They also give details of strange monsters, never seen before.

Confirmed rumors of Draugr in the northern Sea of Storms and across the Enchanted Sea.

P: Draugr?

Z holds hand up to BA

→ P: they're a myth – ye know those zombie stories that I like so much?

P nods

Z: it's because they're not real. A simple evil, easily combated and dispatched. A clear foe.

P waited

Z: She's saying that Draugr are real. They're Zombies of the drowned, possessed and haunted by their own Ghosts.

CP: last year, constant rumors of Barrow Wights and disappearances all along the coast, but mostly just good-for-nothings or ne'er-do-wells and sometimes an Imperial Marine out to sea. Then whole ships this spring. Since mid-summer, confirmed sightings from those who chose to set sail together for security. And the corpses are always the same: either bilge rat meisceoirí or Marines, though that would be changing some now, with the merchant ships being taken.

S's and T's ears twitch, looking up from their plates as they toss down the last bites of their tuna melts.

S Stand by...

Both twitch some more.

S They're he-e-ere. The _Pig's Hat_ mighta been a bit more useful fer this...

Z holds his gaze a moment, then gives tiny nod sideways toward the main bar room.

After a moment of thinking it all through, Zelda sets a small velvet pouch on the table.

CP glances toward the door to ensure no observers, then carefully cracks open the bag.

Giving only a bored look of vague interest, she murmurs that she can move the gems, but they look high value indeed, so it'll take a while.

BA pushes it back toward Z, Z cocks head with hand swipe negating.

Z cheers, love – this'll be expensive. Ta!

CP ...?

S What the fuck, liver lips? Am I talkin' ta you – yeah, I'm talkin' ta you, sizzle chest. I must be talkin' ta you. Ya see anyone else here? Who the fuck you think I'm talkin' to, numb nuts? You just spilled alla my drinks on me, beefy-tits! What's with that, you some kinda mamaluke?

CP Och, no – not like this; _not like_...

An expensive crash and tinkling noises carried in from the main room, followed by roars and cheering and the sound of smashing wood.

CP's mind wanders to brass. The chandler should be able to rebuild her place well with brass. Nice, solid brass; unbreakable, non-shattering brass; no-splinters brass...

Z Ye have a priest-hole in your office, I fancy?

CP gives a slow, despondent nod toward a ratty rug in the corner as Sonic barrels in.

With a grave look on his face, he turned to Anne.

“Save the cappuccino machine!”

Then quick as a wink, he disappeared down the trapdoor to the sound of Imperial Marines entering the building at the height of the brawl.

▲ End alpha ▲

=====

They headed northward through the Faron countryside over the next few days, skirting the larger towns for the most part, but needed to follow up on recent leads. That meant a city, preferably a seaport for the next leg of their journey. Over the next week and a half, they made their way to Eldin, skirting through the northeastern portion of Kokiri Forest. It was a risk, but the best option available.

As they wandered through Regnants' Park, Zelda grew uneasy.

“I stayed under this bridge once,” she remarked as they crossed over a brook, heading south “Wouldn't recommend it; drafty, the room service is for shit, and they have an early checkout.”

Thinking back to that evening, her eyes narrowed in suspicion at the lamp lighting the pathway.

The blue lamp.

The Nayru-blue lamp.

The whole sparked a memory for her, and so she led the party to a nearby rock formation as the dusk gathered and the park lights began to glow, illuminating warm pastel islands throughout the acres of the manicured lawn. Glancing up, it was just as she'd remembered it from years past: a small opening, seemingly to a cave, about twenty feet up, some small bushes and reeds clinging to the ledge and mostly obscuring even that much. The rock face would hardly inconvenience them, but presented a fairly sheer surface to most passersby.

As they considered it for the night, a soft, sanctimonious, tenor whine came from behind them, “That's what they make _paths_ for, you know.”

Sonic was immediately irate, but could barely contain his laughter as he turned to see a thin Human with a hair bun and his carefully trimmed beard waxed into a short, sharp fork. He wore hiking boots and camouflage cargo shorts beneath a thick-striped button-down T-shirt, and was walking a pekingese with a little red bow in its hair.

_Izzat a fuckin' cranberry-avocado frappe? Might as well be drinkin' a recycled enema. Oh, fer fuck's sake – even the freakin' yip-shit has one!_

“Yeah. Calm yer tits there, Snowflake.”

“ _I'm_ on the _Citizens' Patrol_ , you know, and _I know_ what you're _up to_. If you're still here when Bun-bun and I return, I'll report you _all_ , _and_ see to it that you _each_ get _two_ demerits!”

At this, even Peach had to struggle between a placid response and laughing outright.

Sonic noticed this with some misgiving, sparing her reaction a moment of consideration, but returned to the matter at hand.

“Fuckin' _pendejo_ , man...” he growled to himself, wiping his hand down his face.

Tails stepped in to prevent further escalation. “Yes sir. We won't make any trouble, sir!”

The man didn't seem to believe this, his lips tightening a pinch and his nostrils flaring slightly, but gave them a warning once-over, and continued his walk with a few pointed looks back over his shoulder.

“Ja ne!” Ruru called out in a sarcastically friendly tone, following this with a muttered “ _Komono!_ ” as she thumbed her nose, then swung her arm around and up from behind her other hand, topping it with her thumb thrust between her index and middle fingers in a fist.

Sonic turned to Zelda in disgust, “Yer sure you wanna save _schmucks_ like _that_ from Warbotdorf?”

She shifted her head to one side and then the other, as if debating the matter.

**O ~~~ O**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **1** Scrum Dwarves: Barbarian clans. They love sheep for food, steeds, and... other activities.
> 
> +2 To Hit & +2 Dam bonus with head butts, and +2 AC & -2 DR bonus when taking a hit to the head (aside from simple practice, they have remarkably thick skulls). For gaming purposes, consider it a headbutt-specific free automatic bonus racial feat of Improved Unarmed Strike (though only ±1 as a free automatic bonus cultural feat, if the (N)PC isn't genetically a Scrum Dwarf or other thick-skulled species, or magically altered, or what have you). There's also Stunning Headbutt, but that's not automatic or a bonus per se.
> 
> Picture them as being something like drunken 'teens (or '60s bikers) with heavy metal and/or punk in the park on a Friday night. Scrum Dwarves basically party, raid, fight, build a bonfire, drink some more, and pass out. They're also surprisingly indifferent about other (N)PC species for rutting purposes. The women are the same as the men. Nihilistically thrill-seeking, hedonistically oriented emotional “sources”; adventurous with minimal requirements and limited imagination. Space Rats-light [Blakes 7, “Stardrive”], Nord-light and Mags [Dr. Who, “Psychic circus”], and The Young Ones capture some of their essence, as do WHFRPG Dwarves (tone down WH's tattoos ~10% and increase their punk and new wave haircuts ~30%). Weres and berserkrs are fêted, heyoka greatly welcomed (taken less than seriously, but more than merely humored). Where the Wolfen basically stress the 'teen-like nature, the Scrum Dwarves focus on the drunkenness aspect.
> 
> They're basically CN Droogs (“A clockwork orange”, Anthony Burgess, 1962), rather than CE (though in their case, they're not strongly philosophically aligned – it's more as if they have vaguely TN personalities with definite Chaotic traits; what might be written as TN(C), though C(TN) would be more apt). Palladium might be better for this case: Selfish [Anarchist] or Evil [Aberrant], with rare cases otherwise (usually Good [Taoist] or Evil [Miscreant], maybe Selfish [Unprincipled]). WoD might be best, but too much to get into in a footnote.
> 
> **2** Cesta: from the game of jai alai. Slings are indeed worthy weapons, but cestas certainly attain higher muzzle velocities, so to speak (though slings' 84 m/s is still rather less than pistols' typical muzzle velocities of 200-400 m/s, and perhaps 1,000+ m/s for rifles, but close to crossbows' 100+ m/s). Recall what you've learned from “Zombies & calculus” (Colin Adams, 2014): the force of a bat-launched baseball is perhaps 900 N, whereas cracking a [human] skull takes ~10,000 N; a 5 oz baseball at 90 mph (40 m/s) isn't likely to succeed at this (though it could still be lethal) – a cesta-launched stone at twice that speed is <4/5 as non-skull-cracking (presumably Peach would need to be careful about rib cages, noses, temples, throats, spines, vital organs, etc.), and should have a max range of <720 meters (more usually <460 m). As for specific moving-targets (massed troops being spray-and-pray lead in the air)... I'd guess that you're looking at an effective range of ~20-40 m (maybe ~40-80 m for stationary targets).
> 
> For comparison and contrast, consider the golfing record of a 418 m drive and longest batted baseball record of 200 m.
> 
> The similar principle of a mousetrap might launch a small item at 15-30 m/s, so probably only good for poison-tipped needles. They seem to be in the range of 10N of force to set, yielding ~1-2 J energy, so not really much.
> 
> **3** Poe-spirits: While presenting a mostly-full-torso vaporous apparition to the world, they are not the ghosts of the departed in fact; they are merely free-willed standing waves of zooic energy, incorporeal but not without some ability to affect the world around them. Although some worlds (e.g.: Beyond the Supernatural, most of D&D) of Icewall do admit ghosts, Light World is not one of them.
> 
> **4** Histoikthys: a shellfish with a dorsal fin that acts as a sail. Proper manipulation of sensitive nerve points controls their speed and heading. Overall size typically varies between water-ski and >20' five-person motorboat, though specimens beyond this range occur.


	7. The Fall of the House of Duhan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **N.B.:** This chapter's footnote section is crammed, so I lack sufficient characters to even link back out to the main text, much less space for anchors in from the text, so you'll have to scroll back and forth or wait 'til you get to the bottom. Sorry about that! 😔
> 
> For the accompanying playlist / soundtrack, please see:  
>  ▐► <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPYG6DgnCJHFlFe-u_MuZiew>
> 
> Foodies: yes, there are recipes available for a good number of the foods mentioned herein. You can find them in “Appendix F: Recipes” (and some few in the commentary / annotation) of the .pdf of “Seize the Deity” at  
>  ▐► <https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BG7P_sVezz8Dn5b8js_34yeAjSBhfN0v>
> 
> ▼ Begin alpha ▼  
>  This chapter is unfinished as yet, and so there are portions that break the usual narrative flow, being outlined rather than fully fleshed out. Please forgive these, as I thought that it might be better to at least present them as-is than to make readers wait until I finally clean it up entirely.  
>  ▲ End alpha ▲
> 
> ▐► **For notes on how to change fonts and font colors and so forth, please see** [Fonts, and colors, and work skins, oh my!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28934610)
> 
>   
> 
> 
> * * *

Peach railed on, “So you've been on the run, fighting the regent's forces piecemeal for almost nine years, and haven't made any real headway. Your army consists of us and some long-haired anarchists who sit around talking in darkened rooms, plus a small fleet that you use sporadically. Isn't that a little cliché? You'd get a lot more done if you approached it as if it were indeed the military campaign that it truly is. This reads like something out of a dime novel. Hell, you even saved a princess who ended up falling in love with you and winning over your heart against all odds! On top of that, you have a history of clashing with the bad guy in past lives, and getting nowhere fast. Is that all that the future of this world holds? Endless battles with no resolution? You're like a couple of kids playing catch-me-if-you-can; neither you nor he has leveraged your resources against the other.”

They'd made port in a small town in northwestern Donkey Kong Country. It was a quiet region, given over mostly to farming.

Zelda contemplated Peach's words.

“Thus the master learns from the padawan...” she said at last.

Peach blinked at her.

“I dunno. Something Sonic's said a few times.”

“Why do you think things are the way that they are? Look around you. Does all of this seem sensible? Different levels of technology everywhere, different magics, redundant approaches to doing the exact same things, the same story played out in a fugue, dozens of sentient races coexisting. It's all about time. The Sheikah Wars screwed it all up. I think that it's all connected in some way, a lot like the gate guard at Freeport was thinking, except more dream-like.”

“– making me wonder if you mean fugue musically or psychologically,” Zelda replied, “Look, different cultures and traditions have different interests and approaches. It's not that big a deal. Cantrips and laser pointers and mind tricks all add up to the same thing, so nobody much bothers with using others' techniques.”

“Maybe they should. What if there's something more that could be done in combination?” Peach gestured to the books and scrolls strewn across the study, the screen full of electronic documents, the dwimmer crystals. “Duhan remains, behind its veil. Adventurers, heroes, villains, and base treasure hunters have entered and never returned, but I don't think that they're gone. The magics that cast it out are lost to us, but we still have clues about their workings and aims. I don't think that they were meant to destroy, but to hold. Beyond that... I don't know. Of one thing I'm certain. We must find out. It sits heavy and menacing, but there is no other solution.”

She turned to Sonic in exasperation.

“ _'snot_ my world, man. I can't hit Warbotdorf on my own, no matter how much I wanna. I fucked that up a'ready, an' lookit what happened. I'm no strategist, just tactics. Ya do whatcher paycheck can afford, an' this is way above my pay-grade, P; I gotta go wit' Z's say-so, or nuttin'.”

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Peach soon comes into her own.

Wherever they go, Peach talks to people, to everyone. She doesn't make speeches or implore the masses. She simply talks about whatever troubles befall them, the worsening state of public affairs, the increasing dearth of wild game. She listens, affirms, reassures, guides them to discover their own answers.

▲ End alpha ▲

=====

Tails looked up as Peach exited the tent. “I didn't know that you had a washbowl in there; your face is glistening! Were you guys exercising? And why do you pray so loudly? Every night you wake me up with ' _Oh my Stars, my Gods, oh sages!_ ' – or Zelda does, with her cursing so much. She must have a lot of bad dreams these days.”

Ambushed, she squirmed for an answer.

“Lay off, pixel brain,” Sonic said, coming from the brook, “It's early, fer shit's sake. Let 'er find some bushes, then ya can pester her.”

Peach shot him a thankful look and scurried away.

Zelda came out a minute later.

▼ Begin alpha ▼

(Later) S: Not fer nuthin', but ya do know there ain't no one in camp who don't know when you're, uh... _shtuppin'_ – right P?

P: Meeps! Peach shrinks into herself and asks Zelda if they can get a quieter tent.

▲ End alpha ▲

=====

The party waited with bated breath as a shadowy form lumbered away into the gloom.

They couldn't believe what they'd just witnessed.

They had stumbled into a grotesque scene, barely coming to a halt without making their presence known. What had once clearly been a man, and was now little more than a mindless monster, had been feeding on something. A disheveled corpse, blood having streamed from its orifices long ago, now crusted and filthy. At the height of its feast, the form had simply stopped eating after having devoured much of the body with relish, and wandered off, the corpse still twitching spasmodically. Both of these creatures wore green caps with the letter “L” emblazoned thereon. They had seen quite a few caps of the sort throughout the woods in this area, of different colors and with various letters. Many of them looked very old, moldering and tattered, some nearly unrecognizable, but most had one clearly distinguishable feature to them: blood stains. This forest was an abattoir.

With the creature almost gone, the corpse sat up slowly, its joints creaking, a slight glow discernible in its eyes. It gathered itself to its feet, a few false starts before fully achieving this, and shambled away.

_I spy wit' my li'l eye some'n that begins wit' “z”..._

Some minutes passed before anyone felt that it were safe to breathe. Zelda glanced around for a distraction, something to break their tension.

Peach suddenly let out a strangled squeal, blushing crimson and covering her rear. Tails looked behind her quizzically, and asked Zelda “Why did you pinch Peach's butt?”

Zelda couldn't be bothered with much of a cover story, but sought to humor Peach's reserved manner in any event. “Pinched it? Oh well, yes, pinched... because I wasn't sure if we were dreaming what just happened.”

Peach indignantly muttered something about “ _Pinched_ it?!? You just shoved your fing–”, while Sonic tried unsuccessfully to cover a smirk.

He stared off after the now departed corpses, “Death's only the beginnin', eh?”

Zelda looked around the clearing, “Anyone else need a blunt, after that? I have a few to spare, so speak up now.”

Sonic glanced over at her, still trying to clear his head of this latest turn of events. “Ya know what? Just this once, yeah. Do me a solid.”

“Where does she keep all of them, anyway?” Peach asked him, “I mean, I know where her cigar case is, but it can't possibly hold as many as she smokes.”

“Hell if I know. Hammerspace maybe? I'm still tryna figure out where she even gets 'em all in the first place,” he replied, “Z, this shit's clean, right?”

Zelda's only reply was a withering look that as much as said that he was an idiot for even asking. She lit one and passed it to Peach, who took it gratefully.

Sonic stared into the woods some more, “Oh yeah, I just fuckin' love it when a plan comes together. Embrace the suck. Yo, P, remind me ta tell Barbara they're comin'a get 'er.

“An' in case anyone hasn't figured this out yet, as of now we're sleepin' in the trees until further notice.”

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Zelda eyed the shambling group, weighing their odds.

“Ya wanna live forever?” Sonic asked nobody in particular.

“I've been doing an acceptable job of it, so far,” Peach grumbled nervously.

=====

Practicing tiger-plays-with-ball, focusing her chi, the air sparks between her hands. Peach had been working on an idea. In staying loose and fluid, one could slip through the air effortlessly without the tiniest sound. In focusing chi through a knuckle or fingertip, or even a palm-heel strike, one could achieve a devastating blow, especially if the focus were both built up and released as briefly as possible, thus causing a surge of enormous density. Sent through a knife hand to the armpit or a spear hand or half-fist adjacent the groin would be enough to cause a not-quite-instant death; elsewhere should result in pulverized organs and a prolonged and excruciating death.

In holding only a fraction of such a surge continuously, permitting the flow to build up incrementally like a plastic ball crossing charged strips in a bowl, she should be able to create and sustain a large force to be released at a moment's notice. Releasing it from a whip hand though...

She develops the ability to throw fire balls.

Sonic congratulates her on her hadōken, “Ya done good there, George.”

▲ End alpha ▲

Dinner that night centered on an experiment that Peach had dreamed up: pasteles stuffed with pernil asado and plátanos maduros, and a side of arroz con gandules y habichuelas. Sonic had several reservations about the idea, but Zelda gorged herself.

=====

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Kong Manor, a sprawling region of buildings laid out across several acres of jungle deep in the heart of Donkey Kong Country. Parts of it were given over to wild growth while others were open air atria, roofed areas without walls, isolated walls unconnected to anything, baths interchangeable with natural features... In ways, it has some consistency like a small community, domiciles and storerooms and recreation halls interspersed throughout. The theme is hard to identify, thick timbers and delicate wattles represented equally, lacquered woods vying with rough-hewn stone, all set not only across the grounds, but upward through the trees and often enough buried within the hills. It put Peach in mind of Orcish yurt-halls in tales that she'd read, filled with dragons and mead, and of some of the more elegant structures that she'd seen back in Freeport.

They had received a cryptic message from Daisy to seek out Donkey Kong. She'd made it fairly clear before that he had been a resistance sympathizer throughout, but it was only with a great deal of argument that they had finally decided to pay her heed and follow her instructions, and then only because she wouldn't have sent anything without significant impetus.

Sonic began to wonder if there were any princesses who simply sat around their royal court and _princessed_ things.

Untrusting of him, Zelda accepted Daisy's assessments, but remained unconvinced as yet of their veracity. Upon their arrival directly through the front gate, she had opened discussions with a direct accusation and demand for explanation. He had indeed apologized profusely, and over the course of it had explained that he had deliberately ensured that security was minimal and lax on the evening of Zelda's raid. House Kong had kidnapped Peach at Warbotdorf's behest to prevent retribution should they not do so.

▲ End alpha ▲

“Well. That explains something that's bothered me ever since that night. There was hardly anyone roaming the grounds, no guard on Peach's room, and her door was unlatched,” Zelda thought aloud.

Sonic motioned to a steward, “Coffee, turbodiesel, loads of it.”

He hovered uncertainly.

Sonic rolled his eyes and gave a growling, frustrated sigh, “Really thick shit, rich 'n' complex body, wit' enough caffeine ta make y'ancestors jump outta the grave an' slap ya. An' no fruity-ass flavored shit: _real_ freakin' coffee. Don't forget tons o' cream an' sugar. An' fine-ground hazelnut; shit-ton of it. Cookies, too. Maybe some stale crullers – not really greasy at all, or they won't soak up the coffee, just stiff 'n' crunchy, like zwieback, wit' just enough sugar glazin' ta taste sweet-ish – oh yeah, an' some custard fills wit' chocolate icing, maybe some strawberry jelly filled too, wit' powdered sugar over the top. And sandwiches, while yer at it. This is gonna take a while.”

The steward nodded and hurried away.

▼ Begin alpha ▼

They chose to remain at Kong Manor for the time being.

Zelda takes Peach for a walk. Zelda remains quiet for most of it. They reach a koi pond, crossing its footbridge to a tiny island in the middle of the pond. The pond teems with fish, not all koi, and is covered in lily pads. She sits at the edge of a small stone fountain, water burbling from bamboo pipes that made infrequent musical clunks when overbalanced.

▲ End alpha ▲

“I've denied my heart for too long. That we should each bear the other's claiming-scent mark **1** makes it irrefutable,” Zelda opened. This scent had come to the fore in the weeks since Hyrule, and borne itself down upon her thoughts.

Peach had been increasingly on edge during their walk, and was now more nervous by the moment.

“Our world is on yet another cusp of history, and we stand at the eye of this storm, but life goes on around us even as we speak.”

Peach's eyes tensed, her nerves felt as if she were standing atop the edge of a cliff.

Zelda slid from the low frieze to the ground at Peach's feet. She took Peach's hand and looked up into her eyes.

“Peach Toadstool, will you be my queen?”

Peach burst out crying with joy. The world spun around her. In her dreams she had imagined this, but in truth hadn't dared hope that such might come to pass.

_Oh my Stars, oh my Stars, oh my Stars!_

She opened her mouth, but words stilled in her throat. She could feel a hysterical laughter bubbling upward, her body buzzing and tingling as she almost leapt about in response.

Forcing her words by dint of will alone, she replied “Yes! Oh my Stars – for as long as you will be my empress and warm my bed, yes!”

What had started as a stifled squealing scream ended in hysterical tears and laughter, but Zelda understood well enough.

“To thee alone, now and ever I plight myself,” she said, her devotion clear. Arising, she took Peach's face in her hands and kissed her tenderly. Peach would have none of this, returning the kiss with a passion that brooked no resistance.

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Wedding. Private affair, to keep Peach safe from Warbotdorf, 'til the war is over.

Flowering vines cascade across a mist-laden cathedral of Japanese maple, wisteria, jacaranda, and bamboo. The ephemeral light filtering down brought a surreal feeling of numinosity.

Peach's hair in a garland of flowers.

Nayru herself officiates in a mossy vale that opens to a flooded grotto.

Ceremony involves mouth to mouth exchange of a strong red brandywine **2**. Each takes a mouthful, swallowing half and kissing the remaining portion into the other's mouth in turns, followed by a shared turn wherein each has one that they then commingle. They take up a ringed cord between them, symbolizing their shared journey, their joys and sorrows, neither bound to the other, but joined by choice.

=====

They meet Princess Kitana over dinner. She'd been in intermittent contact with Kong, and could only now return. She introduces herself, and there's some who's-on-first confusion when Ruru thinks she'd said “Kita na.” Very friendly, down to Earth. Giving her a once-over, Sonic asks if she happens to know anyone by the name of “ _Pauline Réage_.”

Dinner is fruit salad, tilapia, rouladen, coconut sesame rice with ginger chicken, banana cream pie, and copious servings of piña coladas.

▲ End alpha ▲

Sonic was telling Peach about the fine ribbons of basil being cut in a chiffonade, and to roll the leaves carefully before slicing, but her attention had already been drawn away by Zelda's conversation with Kitana.

She bit her lower lip and stared at the ground, eyes bugging out, blushing furiously.

“She looks fantastic in her loli outfits, especially the goth ones,” Zelda continued, “and just wait 'til you see what she can do with a cherry stem...”

“Oh, right, yeah – an' _I'm_ an asshole?” Sonic jumped in, flicking a couple of loose fingers toward himself.

“Still not listening...” she told him in a sing-song voice, raising her middle finger at him.

Tails broke the moment, interjecting with “Yeah! We could all be friends! That'd be great! Hey, wait, does that mean you guys are going to have sleepovers, and make even more noise every night?”

Sonic just covered his eyes and shook his head.

Peach panicked and drew DK aside to ask if there might be quieter accommodations available.

Over the third course, having been asked about his early years, Kong replied apologetically “Well, you know how it is sometimes: young, dumb, and full of – _ill-guided... decisions..._?” his voice trailing off uncertainly after Zelda caught his eye with a sharp glance. She clarified with a quietly voiced “ _Sheltered life_ ,” mouthing the words exaggeratedly and tilting her head surreptitiously toward Peach, who was mercifully oblivious and focused entirely on her plate.

The conversation shifted focus to more general larceny.

“I stole a cookie once – and we hadn't even had dinner yet!”

Kong stared at Peach for a moment, a half-smile almost forming on his lips at what was surely a most deadpan humor, turning to Sonic in disbelief as her sincerity made itself clear.

“Yep,” Sonic told him, nodding, “fer reals.”

“Right then. Now that we've all eaten well and had some time to get a feel for one another... you guys ready for the Big Red Pill?” Kitana asked.

The table lay bare, other than for their wine glasses and a few carafes.

Kong simply leaned back, pensive. The rest exchanged looks and gave her the nod.

“Your world is flat. Beyond it lies an infinite plane of ice with an infinite number of other world-ponds scattered across its surface, most of which lie beneath protective domes, like a bunch of snow globes. They're not all flat, but that's irrelevant right now. Some of the world-ponds operate under different laws of magic, science, and psionics; others are pretty much in line with the majority. The Ice provides something of a baseline minimum for them all. With me so far?”

They each looked around uncertainly, but seemed to grasp her point and be willing to accept her words at face value.

Tails spoke up, “That actually makes a little sense – it's consistent with our observations of Ouroboros, but I had simply put those down to a Fata Morgana.”

Kitana manipulated the surface of her bracer, and a hologram covered the tabletop. A scale model of Light World, with lesser geographical features sometimes pixelated badly, but generally showing a surprisingly decent resolution.

The image zoomed outward, the Light World shrinking to the size of a saucer. The icy surface took on a dull gray color, and other green-brown-blue areas appeared within it, some the size of plates, one or two as large as platters, a few that are as tiny as the base of a teacup.

Sonic didn't move.

“Nice shots. Full spec MilSat?”

“Gravitational lensing through nano-wormholes. Troll-God **3** technology,” Kitana replied.

“Yer tellin' me the map really is the territory?”

She nodded.

“Huh – on-the-spot D.O.R.D.s, got it.”

Kitana's brow lifted as she nodded briefly, “Yes, precisely.”

“Yer shittin' me...” Sonic craning his neck as if looking for a hidden camera as Kitana turned to the display.

“This is your local neighborhood. I'm showing you all of this to give you a sense of the scales involved. My world, Edenia, is rather far away to the south-southwest.”

“Fuckin' A, man – is _anybody_ around here from around here? How'dja get here, and waddya want?” Sonic asked bluntly.

Kitana cocked her head at him and nodded.

“Fair enough,” she replied, and gathered her thoughts.

“Approximately two hundred sixty five years ago, my world was still subject to emperor Shao Kahn, an invading dictator whose modus operandi was to overlap portions of his own world – Outworld – with portions of other worlds and take them over. At that time, he had merged Outworld with a world-pond known as Midgard, occupying parts of its central-most region called Earth. This was his downfall, and Edenia seized its freedom. However, he had left behind an insurance policy that caused Edenia to become imprisoned within a spatiotemporal anomaly, cutting us off from the greater cosmos. We're still uncertain of the exact dates involved, but that's the background in essence.

“Recently, the constraints have begun decaying, permitting us more normal relations, but the decay is predicted to progress to the point of Edenia's eventual destruction. We've opened portals to a number of world-ponds both near and far in search of possible routes to prevent this, or at worst to evacuate to. In short, we need help, and I'm seeking allies. Many, if not most, world-ponds are controlled by sociopaths and are actively hostile toward others. Yours is one of the very few that we deemed worth seeking to establish relations with, in the hope that your magics and lost sciences might help. We understand that your political situation is untenable, and are willing to assist with relevant technologies, though our available personnel are limited. Get it?”

“Got it,” Sonic said.

“Good,” she replied, breathing a sigh of relief as she finished.

“So why us?” he persisted.

She looked off into the distance and said “Your world's protectors are spirits and gods. They don't really make themselves available for appointments. That means that we either find someplace else, or invade, or seek out more-temporal authorities. We're neither inclined nor able to invade, and you already know that safe worlds are few and far between. That leaves the local governing bodies – or our eventual deaths, of course.”

Sonic looked around at everyone as Zelda snorted.

“Oh aye, local governing bodies... you do realize that we're in no position to assist even ourselves, much less anyone else?”

Kitana turned to her.

“Yes. We're well aware of the current power struggle in your world's political structure. The Regent is powerful but evil, hence not one to seek alliance with. You're in an underdog position, which means that you have incentive to consider our proposal. You're also the last of the imperial line, which makes you the legal autarch of most of this world.”

Zelda thought for a moment. “About how many evacuees would we be looking at?”

“One hundred ninety six thousand, five hundred and sixty.”

Tails glanced sharply at her as his eyes widened, “So... not one hundred ninety six thousand, eight hundred eighty-four **4** , then?”

“No, why?”

“That's a pretty specific number...” Zelda replied, shifting uneasily as she noted Tails's reaction.

“You'd be surprised by what can qualify as entertaining when absolutely nothing ever changes.”

“Where could we even lodge them? Maybe Hyrule, since we have plenty of space there; no, The Golden Plains of Rygar, a little less fertile, but a lot more open space, and they could help keep an eye on things over there – but even then, that's contingent upon our success against Warbotdorf.”

“I know that this is asking a lot,” Kitana said, “and that's why we're throwing in an unlimited uplink to our encyclopædia. You can have that now, gratis, without further promise or hope that you'll assist us.”

She set down a crystal on the table.

Sonic watched her as she said this. She meant it, and it meant something huge to her.

He kicked Zelda's foot twice, beneath the table, then twice again.

“You want to know where that Troll-God tech came from? It's the most advanced design that we can actually grasp, and that barely scratches the surface of what's in the encyclopædia. The rest of it is beyond us – and that's _with_ the onboard multimedia tutorials.”

“Yeah, a'ight, but if ya got one of these, then why didn't ya simply leave before?”

“Partly because of the veil that Shao Kahn cast over Edenia, since its local entropic effects converge to a recursive state and limit our efforts at anything, and partly because of our infrastructure – by way of analogy, you can focus a little sunlight to build a fire, but that doesn't translate to high technology overnight, even if you know the basic principles.”

They discussed the potential pros and cons. Zelda's thoughts wandered as the others' talk sank deeper into logistics and sociological probabilities. _Her birth family had been dead since before she'd taken to the road. If she were to return to stake her claim by force, then she would be Imperatrix, and only through the blood of many._ The time table that Kitana set out wasn't up to their current needs, but this didn't dissuade Zelda's interest in pursuing matters further; it offered options.

“You said infinite.”

Kitana nodded at Peach, “Imagine every story you've ever read or heard or told, all true. Every world that you can conceive is out there, somewhere. An infinite number of copies of each, in fact. Some completely identical **5** , some different in minor detail. Every possible history of each one. Now imagine every way that they could possibly interact.”

Peach's eyes glazed over momentarily. She glanced at Tails, who cocked an eyebrow back at her suspiciously.

Peach moved her hand sideways decisively, then moved it through a rapid twirl. Tails twitched his eyebrow, then shifted through a rapid series of gestures from a fist to a sideways motion with his fingers clamped like a duckbill, and ending with his forefinger pointing upward.

“So. Beth one **6** of them. Minimum,” Peach said, watching Kitana's response.

“You're quick. Yeah, beth one, minimum. Beth two seems... debatable. Or so we think.”

The rest looked around, waiting for someone to explain.

Tails cleared his throat.

“Basically, an infinitely larger number than infinity,” he said, cringing at his own imprecision, then turning to Kitana, “and speaking of infinity, what prevents the plane collapsing within its Schwarzschild radius? The critical density tends toward zero.”

Kitana had no answer for him.

Sonic looked around the table, “Got it. Wold Newton, big time. Send lawyers, guns, 'n' money, the shit has hit the fan. _Minchia!_ ”

▼ Begin alpha ▼

P: this all fits together with the Sheikah Wars somehow, I'm sure of it.

S: The Sheikah Wars were a couple thousand years ago, right?

Z: Mm-hmm, six and a half thousand years back.

P: “Six thousand five hun – dre-e-ed...” she trailed off, her eyes glazing, twitching rapidly, her jaw slackening as her head began to tilt a touch.

Racing to the scrolls, she started unrolling them, flipped note sheets, searching for a reference. Then she was back to the computer screen, tapping rapidly.

R: Nani... sore wa desu ka?

P: Here! Got it! It's this year!

Peach runs back to the scrolls, Ruru dodging her on the fly.

R: Gomen ne – gomen!

Holding out her arms in equal parts apology and nervousness.

Z: Sixty five sixty one? What about it?

P: Look, in these prophecies, they're talking about the coming new year!

Z: You... taught yourself... Ancient Sheikah.

P: Yeah. Sure. It isn't all that hard, once you know the vowels, but luckily it's actually a pretty featural orthography. It's a language isolate, but modern Sheikah ultimately derives from it, even though there are some weird gaps and jumps in the literature and corpus, and they don't look anything alike at first glance; it's almost like a record playing a groove, then jumping backward to the preceding groove, and so on. After that it's a bit more complicated, since there's a ton of diacritic markers that can be applied to pretty much any letter – which is important to pronunciation, since pitch slope and stress slope are critical to interpretation **7** – and even though its lexicon is analytic in nature and huge as a result, the logic of the vocabulary is strongly agglutinative, even though they don't differentiate between nouns and verbs and such, and decline and conjugate situationally, yet still use sentence positioning grammar, with a few more declensions than you'd ever expect, and their conjugations are just _insanely_ complex, and this is all modified by word-diacritics for nuance, and entire phrases use different inks for tonality, not to mention that –

Ruru interrupted with “Bored now,” and proceeded to flip though pictures on the computer.

Z: Today, Princess. I love your kuudere-meganekko look with those cute little librarian glasses – especially with your plaid skirt there – but if it's important, then save the geek-gasm for later and tell us what you've found before the world comes to an end.

P smiles and blows Z a kiss.

P: You'd better be nice, missy, or you won't get any tonight. However, that's just it; my little ' _geek-gasm_ ,' as you put it, is kind of crucial to the whole thing – and that bit about the world coming to an end? Funny choice of wording there. See, they thought of time as sort of spiraling, and all of their prophecies are phrased poetically, but that's exactly how they did their math too, so it's actually straightforward plaintext for them.

▲ End alpha ▲

Zelda had to stifle a laugh at Peach's threat, given the libido that the girl had displayed thus far.

Peach read aloud the nearly eight millennium old prophecy.

_** The Great Feast ** _  
_In the middle of the seventh millennium of peace,_  
_as the snows of the fifth prime past the zenith increase by one,_  
_and the light of night shows its darkest face full red ,_  
_then will a Great Spirit of pure intent choose an end,_  
_else shall see Who Commands tunnels of air_  
_loose The Ravenous to spread as locusts to grain_  
_and ascend even as this world-composite grows still of life._

▼ Begin alpha ▼

R: Minna, wakarimasen! <frustrated wail> Not that it matters, since it will probably just be something gruesome.

S: Great, we're workin' on spec – I hate workin' on spec. O.K., so yeah, that's some heavy soundin' shit there, but I'm with Ruru on this one. I don't get it either.

P: Right. The seventh millennium of peace is easy, that started in 6000, and the middle of that is 6500. The zenith is their way of saying the center point of that century, so that's 6550. The fifth prime number is eleven, which brings us to 6561. _The snows_ refers to the winter, and increasing by one is the old year turning into the new year at the solstice.

We already know that whatever he's doing requires a blood moon, and they're thoroughly unpredictable.

S: Yeah, 'less he's figured out a way to predict 'em – or induce 'em. **8**

P: Predict, maybe, but not induce arbitrarily or else he would have done so already – and that's what they're talking about with the night light. This new year solstice will fall on the second night of a new moon, when it shows its darkest face.

Z: ...and the rest of it?

P: Long story short? I think that someone has to sacrifice themselves or he wins. That has something to do with The Ravenous – that's a collective plural by the way, so they're talking about some group of things, not some single-something, except with a weird timeless tense, not an infinitive, more like omnitemporal-simultaneous – and I'm pretty sure that they kill everything in the world. Everything.

Nobody said a word. The only sound was the occasional popping ember in the fireplace.

P: And I know that this is just a shot in the dark, but the way that they use “world-composite” is really funny – that's not a literal translation, it's just the best that I could do with it, since the way that they said it really comes out closer to “ _this-particular singular-group-of-worlds that had been many, will have been made one, and now no longer ever were other, by those who no longer will have been_.” That one was really finely conjugated and declined, and I'm still not one hundred percent on it.

Everyone sat silent, looking inward.

P: Look, I know that it all sounds absurd, but if every possibility is reified in a spatially and temporally infinite stochastic cosmos, even if with skew, then logically even the most absurd is _probably_ real somewhere – and _probably_ an infinite number of times over, for that matter. Of course, I guess that it even means that not only is every story true somewhere, but that everything happening anywhere is a story someplace else. Even this conversation right now.

<pause a beat for the penny to drop...>

▲ End alpha ▲

Sonic wore a disturbed look as he pictured an infinite number of roadrunners catching an infinite number of coyotes. For some reason, the roadrunners all sported goatees.

“Oh?” Zelda looked upward and around “Well, I took a real crowd-pleaser last night; I hope the voyeurs got a good view. Hey! You up there! You care to help us out? If not, you can go fuck yourselves.”

Nothing happened.

“...and in an infinite set of other worlds, that actually worked,” Peach observed.

“If all of these places are real, how can we tell the good guys from the bad guys? It's as if there's neither free will nor destiny, just copy after copy. What makes us morally superior?”

“Oh, that's easy,” Sonic countered, “we ain't got goatees.”

Peach, with a handlebar mustache and goatee.

Zelda's mouth dropped slightly, her eyes growing distant and brow furrowing as she first tilted her head and turned it to one side, then tilted and turned it in the other direction in order to clear the image from her mind.

“Thanks for... clearing that up. Moving right along then...”

Returning to Peach, she continued her line of reasoning.

“So, does that mean that they're watching us every time we–”

“ _I'm trying really hard not to think about that!_ "

Zelda tried to look innocent, and changed the subject.

“So, I could meet someone from one of my anime?”

“Mm-hmm, and to them, you might be a fictional character.”

This gave Zelda pause.

Peach considered the same, then looked over to Tails.

“If every possibility is necessarily a story in an infinite number of other worlds – setting aside the question of stochastic probability, obviously – and every story is exactly what's happened in an infinite number of worlds, yet positing that _every_ possibility must exist, then isn't it also a paradox that the plenum must necessarily also include an infinite number of worlds that _aren't_ stories anyplace else and an infinite number of stories that _aren't_ real events anyplace at all?”

They both frowned, then started babbling incoherently at each other about Hilbert Space, Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, and the Axiom of Choice, and immediately lost everyone around them.

Zelda watched all of this for a moment, then glanced around the table.

Licking her lips and placing her thumb and forefinger between them, she produced an ear-piercing whistle.

“Is this part of the same geek-gasm, or has the pair of you fallen down a rabbit hole?”

They looked up from their unintentionally private conference with a guilty start.

“I see. Back to the topic at hand, perchance?”

Peach nodded and turned to Tails, “Remind me to get back to you about Boltzmann Brains and Viṣṇu's dreams, O.K.?”

“I _know_! But _listen_ , the odds against _any_ event versus all of the rest are approximately aleph null to epsilon against, well not epsilon _literally_ , that's just for effect, and–”

Sonic cleared his throat and raised a hand, his fingers curled to match the look on his face. “That world-composite thing? Y'know how I didn't say shit about Kitana's claims about other worlds out there, 'n' this one bein' flat? There's a reason fer that.”

He glanced over to Tails, who had quieted down and now gave him an encouraging smile and motioned toward Peach.

Zelda poured some wine and slid it to him, then lit a cigar. Fully expecting the follow up questions and answers, she lit one for Peach as well, who cast a questioning look in return. Zelda simply lifted a brow and nodded.

Sonic sucked air for a moment and blew out a long breath.

“You see alotta big blue rats or flyin' squirrels around here?” he began, a sour look crossing his face.

Peach blinked, then shook her head no.

 _It's endearing, how seriously she takes every question, and the way that her breasts jiggle so innocently every time that she shakes her head..._ Zelda shook her head rapidly to clear the image from her mind for the second time in as many minutes. _Wrong time; wrong place_ , she thought, letting out a subvocal groan, _Damn it, why did she have to go on such a geek-spiel just now? I swear she has a brain the size of a planet! Does she truly not know how incredibly hot it is when she does that? And still hours before we might retire. Mayhap I could talk her into a brief rendezvous in a broom closet, therein to hike her skirts and..._

“The others know alla this already, but you still need ta hear it. Möbius – the world me 'n' Tails are from – was once a happy little place, just chock full o' cute li'l duckies an' bunnies...”

Over the next half-hour, Sonic told of how he'd come to this world.

“I was once Warbotdorf's second in command, one of an elite group o' clones designed by Warbotdorf himself from a genetic soup. Me 'n' Tails ended up turnin' against him, things went sideways, an' got rough. At first, he'd been all about cybernetics, but then his hunger grew ta new magnitudes, an' he set his sights on life itself, wit' an eye toward other worlds. He had some sort o' alien artifact he was tryna make work with the help o' some small orb. The orb was some kinda huge information center, which is why I kicked Zelda when Kitana offered that encyclopædia – these things're ancient, an' got some next level shit in 'em.

“Warbotdorf had gotten this object o' his ta respond haphazardly. It was a big ring o' metal wit' symbols on it. Some kinda giant toroflux he called it a world-gate.

“When me 'n' Tails moved in on Warbotdorf's fortress at the end, he'd hit the switch just when we almost had 'im. Everything went all screwy. Gravity fell away and I floated forever through nuttin', just watchin' while Möbius went red 'n' black, sucked into a hole.

“Next thing I know, I explode inta the middle of a castle on a bluff of a deserted island. I didn't know where I was, but I knew fer damn' sure where I wasn't. Gravity, oxygen content, sunlight, air pressure 'n' viscosity. Möbius was gone, and this...

“That island sat in the middle of a lake o' giant-crocodile infested lava. Whoever used ta live there had a sense o' humor, judgin' by the tombstones in the graveyard near the castle. There was a mountain nearby with a deserted Dodongo cavern system at the base, an' an abandoned Goron city in the main body.

“I spent the first four weeks there alone before Ruru showed up. Friday, a Deku Scrub, found an' adopted me a little after that. For the first few months wit' Friday, neither me or Ruru understood a single word she said, but we helped her drink her wine – an' she always had some mighty fine wine. It was her kindness, her reachin' out that finally broke through my barriers, dragged me out inta civilized behavior 'n' social interaction. Made me care. Made me give a shit again.

“I lived there fer two years wit' Friday as my wife before Tails popped out through the same spot.

“ 'nother two years, an' Zelda drifted inta the cove. There wasn't much left of 'er. On her own, she'd'a been dead by dawn.

“Over time, piecin' together the history o' Hyrule, I event'chlly figured Warbotdorf landed here too, just a really, _really_ long time ago.

“Back on Möbius, his name was Robotnik,” Sonic concluded, meeting Peach's eyes for emphasis, “...but he went by the moniker of _The Commander_.”

When Sonic finished his story, he looked over at Zelda, then around the table.

_He didn't tell me what happened to him, he gave me a clipped, concise report. Not stripped of personal details, but worse: the details were all there without any emotion. Until now, he's never once even mentioned Friday. Nobody has..._

Peach was looking at him, pain in her eyes, “Sonic, Tails – my Stars, I'm so sorry. I had no idea.”

For the briefest moment, Sonic's eyes tensed with loss as Tails sighed quietly.

“Fuhgeddaboudit. Shit happens, ya deal with it. 's just a matter o' time. 'least he didn't juggle kittens, huh?”

Tails reached over to her with a reassuring smile and patted her hand.

“So it really _is_ all connected...” Peach said. “Time! That's it! I keep getting this feeling that someone messed with time. Someone in the future, I mean, and that what the future was, it isn't any longer. That actually makes sense now, if you look at it from the perspective of the world-composite thing – and maybe we once were a bunch of separate worlds that got merged into a single whole, like Shao Kahn did to take over places, except that something went wrong, and that's why they meddled with time, and when they did that... I don't know. Maybe that changed not only what was going to be, but what had been before as well, sort of like a cosmic handshake through time, and that's why we don't remember them ever having been separate? It would explain a lot about how there are so many different species and levels of advancement and different approaches to the same thing all over the world at the same time, and even the Sheikah language anomalies.

“...umm... Sonic, if Friday's a Deku Scrub, and she's your wife, then how do you... umm...”

“Fuck an androgynous wood-skinned hermaphroditic plant-person with no animal genitalia, who reproduces via seed pollination, root propagation, and cuttings – izzat the ticket'cher lookin' for?” Sonic grinned ironically at Peach's loss for words.

She nodded.

“We're mostly physically compatible, though ya gotta be a bit adaptable. We manage. Sex, from either of our perspectives, just takes a little... _creativity_ – 'sides, y'ever see the schnoz on 'em? Shit; suck start a Harley. So anyway, yeah, I got dangly bits, 'n' she's got a flower fer hair; it kinda takes some figurin', but'cha get there even'chly. Plus... she's one of a set of bud-triplets. I didn't meet her sisters for a while, since they were in, like, some sort o' hibernation or some'n, I dunno – it was all rose quartz bells 'n' amethyst rods 'n' cryotube-lookin' bismuth 'n' shit, an' the whole place was done up in obsidian an' hematite – I also didn't know it at the time, but it turns out that marryin' one of 'em is a marriage ta all three. Turns out that this wasn't a bad thing at all, either. They're individuals, but share some o' their thoughts 'n' senses. It gets umm... _real interestin'_ in bed...” Sonic grinned through the side of his mouth as he said this last, “I think you'll like 'em when ya get ta meet 'em. An' fer the record, they're both male an' female, florally, but since they sorta look female, an' definitely act all feminine an' shit, an' I got no better pronouns to work with, I just call 'em female. I keep thinkin' o' they/them/their, but that'd just get confusin' since there're three of 'em. 'sides, they don't really distinguish sexes at all, an' kinda look at you 'n' me as ' _a little odd that way_ ' – their words, not mine.”

“Wait... so when they... when she... I mean, if _you're_ not there and... would that make it...”

He just watched her stumble through the visuals, her flustered philosophical musings.

She also wanted to ask if he'd lost someone special to him, anyone whom he'd loved, but sensed that this wasn't the right time or place.

“And Tails? Or your grandfather?” she asked, seeking to change the subject to something less embarrassing without prying into what might be too personal, “You said that you guys are genetic clones, but I don't see how that works.”

It was Sonic's turn to nod, “Simply put? Ehh, phyllo... philodendron... philanthropy – dammit, I know this word – phylotype?”

“Phenotype,” Tails prompted.

“That's the ticket – thanks. _Phenotype_ expressions o' different codin's that say the same basic shit. Broadly, life is a lot more genetically compatible than ya think. Alla this is Tails's field o' expertise, not mine – I got _no_ clue what the fuck I just said, but I read all our files an' they pretty much boil down ta one thing: rishathra ain't a contraceptive, life finds a way. Yer half-Toad, right? So, ya know about transgenics 'n' shit? Parallel transport some'n-or-other?”

“Horizontal gene transfer – or lateral,” Tails supplied.

“What he said,” tilting his head toward Tails, “See, it ain't all Darwinian, or even Lamarckian; it's kinda a bit o' both, but mostly just misunderstood. Ya' can say what'cha want about Warbotdorf, he's fuckin' _batshit_ – but he ain't stupid. He even managed ta develop killer tomatoes; files said he got the idea from some movie. That 'n' some'n about giant pea pods, an' megalodons with metallorganic freakin' laser beams as part o' their heads; he was workin' his way up from cyborgs ta fully integrated polybasic life, an' he'd already gotten that down fer nanobotic uses, and then... things got all pear-shaped wit' them, so maybe what happened was fer the best. Whatever. In the end, there's some really crazy shit out there, an' some'n's always comin' ta life. Lookit panspermia an' tell me ya can't get a zillion diff'rent ways fer chemicals ta come ta life.”

Peach looked forlorn again for a moment, then brightened up.

“Hey! This sort of won't help exactly, but you know, there are probably an infinite number of worlds where Möbius is still doing fine and everything!”

Sonic smiled a little, then glanced to Zelda.

“And how did you come to drift into that cove?” she asked, another thread in her mind suddenly coming to the fore as she turned to Zelda.

“I saw _that_ part coming, anyway,” she said, lighting another cigar, “ye might wish another burn, as well, Princess.”

Nervous now, even with the mental haze of the first cigar, Peach nodded and accepted a second one, waiting to see what Zelda had to say.

“As Sonic said, the others know all of this already, and it's really not the time to get into my history, but it does play a part in things – it's all connected, as you keep thinking.”

Pérdida Marie Marguerite Violetta. An elf **9**.

Zelda had met her long ago. They were young, though Pérdida had two years on her. A heart-throbbing beauty, her raven tresses streaked with a scarlet hue; she could've been a pinup girl – Link, Zelda's best friend growing up, used to call Pérdida “ _missile tits_ ”. Pérdida told her everything about her childhood, how she'd been abused and neglected, raped, and in a carriage crash that had nearly broken her spine. Zelda felt horrible for her. Her attentions were flattering, and to be her focus was to be the center of the universe; it had been as if Zelda were swimming through a bed of rose petals. She was charming and beguiling, and it wasn't long before they were an item.

At first, she could do no wrong in Pérdida's eyes, and everything about her fascinated Pérdida; the sex was absolutely incredible, and damned near non-stop – not to mention exciting promises of things to come; Pérdida told her how much she loved butt-stuff, and wanted to have threesomes... even though none of this ever manifested.

Not long after that, maybe a month or two, things began to deteriorate. The sex seemed to come to a grinding halt, and Pérdida began to complain of Zelda's constant neediness, her hands being “ _meathooks_ ,” now deigning to fuck her only once every nine days on average and eventually once every three months, and then only because of how bitchy she said Zelda got, and screaming at her if Zelda gave her a hicky; on the other hand, she questioned Zelda's love for her whenever Zelda didn't “ _nag her for sex_ ,” saying that Zelda didn't even want to love her and was just grateful for Pérdida being there, yet jumping away and exclaiming “ _Don't touch me!_ ” whenever Zelda drew near, and disgusted if Zelda tried to put her tongue into her ear. Pérdida started to tell her that she'd get what she gave her and be happy for it, that she was lucky that Pérdida even tolerated her, that she'd do what the fuck Pérdida told her to do the way she was told to do it, that Zelda could do whatever she wanted to do but had better remember that every decision comes with consequences, threatening her with “ _You, the books, the cats, everything – out the fucking window!_ ” and saying that she'd burn the place down.

The first time that Pérdida cheated, an ex had been in town and she'd asked Zelda if they could have some time to visit. She'd told Zelda what had happened, feeling so terribly ashamed about wanting to see if “ _it_ ” were still there, and Zelda forgave her but still felt awful and angry and hurt, confused by thinking that she herself must somehow have been to blame. She'd tried sorting out her feelings on paper, how she was hurting and angry with Pérdida, so felt a need to cheat right back, but didn't want to hurt her, which pissed her off because she was the one in pain not the one who'd cheated, which left her right back at square one and hurting. Pérdida discovered it, and this only served to magnify everything tenfold, with Zelda having “ _a cheating problem_.” She looked at other women constantly, commenting on their looks, sometimes deriding them for sluttiness, but berated Zelda for doing the same even when she had no idea that there was someone there to look at. Zelda couldn't call her out on any of this, since Pérdida would simply respond by getting pissed off and declaring that “ _Only a_ thief _thinks everyone's a thief!_ ” or that “ _There are two sides to every story, and the truth is always somewhere in the middle!_ ”

They stayed together, but nothing that Zelda did or said was ever right, ever good enough for Pérdida. Zelda's cooking was never any good anymore, and eventually she stopped cooking altogether; even adding salt or butter to her own food brought down criticism for ruining perfectly good food and insulting Pérdida's cooking. She'd collected a basketful of flowers in a 'gator-infested swamp once, woven them through the door and formed a path through the house to the petal-covered bed, only to be told “ _Great. Thanks. You've covered my bed with dead flowers and live bugs!_ ” Even watching scrynet shows together was difficult, since her emotional involvement with the characters would often provoke a response from Pérdida of “ _Ugh, you're such a fucking girl! You cry at everything!_ ”

After a year of this, it had gone completely to hell. Birthday promises left unkept, forgotten, even denied ever having been made in any seriousness, saying that she'd just been joking about them. Accusations of cheating when going out to eat alone on her own birthday. Being left alone for Samhain while Pérdida went on a date and watched a scrynet show that Zelda loved and had wanted to introduce her to for the longest time, but that Pérdida had always said was stupid; that ended up happening with a few other shows, and a game. Being too drunk to get home safely, hence staying the night at some stranger's place, and all the next day. Wild claims of nearly being horse-jacked an hour after the bookstore had already closed, that turned to attempted rape – with no mention for nearly an hour in the retelling of a crossbow having been involved – and then reporting it to the Night Watch, who had talked with the guy for a few minutes and let him walk away. Then a never-before-mentioned ex-girlfriend who had mysteriously disappeared after malcontent forces had blown up a building, and now, years later and in hiding out of paranoid obsession, inexplicably chose to contact her via magic-message.

Pérdida insisted that Zelda was lazy, filthy, disgusting, controlling, stupid, crazy, paranoid, a font of useless information; that she procrastinated, smelled, interrupted, rewrote history, didn't remember things correctly, acted creepy, and made Pérdida miserable by choice; Pérdida went into rages, threw tantrums when things didn't go her way, stormed and screamed when contradicted or her own contradictions were questioned, disappeared all night and shrugged it off as being perfectly normal and acceptable, replied late to magic-messages and with only one- or two-word off-topic replies, freaked out over the words “ _suspect_ ” and “ _analogy_.” Zelda felt as if she were always walking on eggshells, her gut tied into knots, her nerves screaming at her, she was afraid of making any mistake, of saying anything wrong, even of saying anything right for fear that it would trigger a tirade, or anything at all since then it would be construed as a hint. Revealing interest or disinclination was the worst, since it gave Pérdida insight from which to attack and undermine. She was constantly exhausted, without having done anything to be tired from; she slept, but it was never enough. She couldn't think, couldn't focus, especially when she tried to figure out what was wrong – it all just slid sideways then, her mind growing thick and woolly, lethargy sweeping over her.

To make matters worse, Pérdida needed medical treatment so often that Zelda actually began to wonder if it weren't a ruse. It was for a number of different complaints, usually horribly painful, and she never wanted to go to the same doctor, always having one reasonable-seeming story or another. And then there were the suicide threats. And screaming at her about drinking “ _five rupee coffee after five rupee coffee_ ,” even though she only ever got one – and a second one for free, if it were happy hour – at Moonbucks whenever Pérdida had a “ _special friend_ ” over to visit.

She didn't know what was wrong with her, but it had to be her. It made no sense, otherwise. None of it made any sense at all. She must be crazy, because people simply didn't behave this way – not outside of daytime scrynet soap operas – so surely she must be imagining it, just as Pérdida calmly insisted that she was. Everybody loved Pérdida, who seemed to be rational most of the time, and nobody would ever pull something like this intentionally. Nobody else saw anything wrong with Pérdida's behavior – though to be fair, it seemed that most of it happened when nobody else was around... and it wasn't as if Pérdida were always like that, there were still times when she was really sweet, so obviously Pérdida wasn't some raving lunatic.

Eventually though, it became clear that she was lying, cheating, manipulating Zelda, accusing her of things that _she_ wasn't doing but that Pérdida herself _was_ doing, driving her to think herself crazy and doubt her own judgment and self-worth, she couldn't even remember what she liked to eat, her suggestions were met with shock and scorn only to become Pérdida's own brilliant ideas at some later point. She'd taken to writing down everything, only to have Pérdida deny even that, claiming that Zelda “ _could have written down anything_ ” that she'd wanted to.

Pérdida claimed that Zelda's friends were pieces of shit who just wanted to break them up – until one friend or another came in handy for something that she needed, at which point they were the best of friends, and then pieces of shit again as soon as Pérdida had gotten what she'd wanted. Of course, help had to come the way that she needed it, but any help that she gave was only to the extent that she chose. Other times, Pérdida would simply regale her with stories about her friends and the fun that they had, then rebuke her for not having a life of her own and forcing Pérdida to be her social calendar.

If Pérdida had ever lived in Wharftown, much less the bad part of it as she boasted of, and behaved the way that she did with Zelda, they'd have killed her. So did that mean that she had changed since then, or that she was simply lying about that too, or had she instead somehow managed to wrap them around her finger?

All of this was killing Zelda inside, slowly, her heart bleeding; Pérdida's stories were full of holes, but trying to get answers led only to Pérdida backpedaling and sniping with vacuous sophistries, or occasionally Pérdida saying that it was all in the past and asking why Zelda kept bringing it up, and calling Zelda her abuser.

Her heart broke when finally she discovered evidence of Pérdida's infidelities, the perfidy and subsequent mockery and derision of her own attempts to placate her; in one case, she and one of the girls with whom she was cheating were laughing together about Zelda having believed Pérdida's claims about an on-scry profile having been made by someone else to frame her and how she'd guessed that password and had the profile removed.

There were magic-messages in which Pérdida claimed that Zelda was sleeping after having beaten her, or that they'd just finished having a threesome, or complaining about Zelda taking the carriage and leaving her stuck at home – _per Pérdida's own instruction_ – after her gall bladder operation, or how Pérdida had been in a body cast for the past few months after a carriage crash that had never happened in reality, or how she and Zelda were moving to the Mushroom Kingdom soon and she could finally be with the guy at the other end of the message. There were multiple on-scry profiles looking for dates and sex. Confronting Pérdida about them, she raged that Zelda was pure fucking evil, not even a real person.

Zelda's soul was torn away in pieces, shredded; she was in Hell. Pérdida returned only a sneer, saying that Zelda was just pissed off because Pérdida wouldn't fuck her anymore, and so had lost her favorite toy.

After years of this, Pérdida moved into a friend's place to work on their relationship, saying that it would be for “ _...only a week or two, a month at the most_ ,” as she took Zelda to pick up some sheets for herself, pointing out that they were the same ones as Zelda had. Somehow, that failed to make Zelda feel any better. Toward the end, Pérdida told her that after Zelda had been in the carriage crash a year and a half earlier, and taken six months to learn how to walk again, it was while Zelda was in the hospital that Pérdida had realized that she could leave.

In the end, after six years together, Pérdida had betrayed her in order to position herself with Warbotdorf, who had yet to rise to power. The discard. At that point, she had accused Zelda of having beaten and raped her, throwing her into disgrace before her family's eyes. They died still thinking this true.

To save herself, Zelda had run, taking nothing with her. Lousy planning, but the moments that she had thus gained turned out to be the balance of life or death.

Finally her mind broke. Her bucket was full. Late one evening, wandering a vast and empty beach, she collapsed into convulsions without provocation; uncontrollable, unconstrained tears. Unable to move for half an hour. Unable to do anything but cry, curled up into a fetal position.

When she could move again, she couldn't think anymore, just stare listlessly at whatever was in front of her as she wandered. She was dead inside.

The last thing that Pérdida had said to her kept running through her head: “ _It is what it is..._ ,” dismissing her own actions as if they were all merely something that had simply happened, like a vagrant breeze, or randomly waking up from a nap.

On the run for months, she stayed barely ahead of pursuit. She was exhausted, confused, underfed, suffering from exposure and innumerable minor wounds from Goddesses-knew-what, various infections taking their toll. When she'd come to the lava village of Brigadùn **10** , she'd sought only safe harbor for the night. She had crept into a decrepit ship at the end of their marina and hidden in its hold.

That night, her pursuers razed the village. Blood and flames, screams, laughter. People flayed alive and impaled. Rape and murder, in whatever order. Children hauled away.

Her ship was cast adrift.

When she awoke the next morning, she had no supplies, no knowledge of the ship's workings. It had drifted for a week before she'd caught sight of the island. By then she was out of what little water had been aboard in puddles, and hadn't eaten for almost two weeks.

Lashing herself to the tiller, she'd sat at it and passed out, drifting in and out of consciousness for several days more as her ship drifted ever closer to the cove.

Sonic had dragged her off of the ship and back to the ruined castle, where Tails and the Fridays had then taken care of her for weeks. She'd wandered the wilderness for forty weeks.

The Fridays brought her herbs, berries, leaves, vines, cacti, and mushrooms that soothed her nerves, dulled her fears, helped with her nightmares and night terrors. Some of their concoctions brought deep insightful visions, the smokes carrying her far away, the pastes and foods healing her heart to the extent that they could, letting her mind sort itself out. The spirits that the Fridays called forth offered the sagest of counsel, probing with questions without prying. Eventually she found the one combination in particular that worked best – what she now smoked in her cigars. It lightened her mood, made her sociable, returned some of her appetite, let her sleep without needing to be exhausted in order to avoid nightmares. As an irrelevant bonus, it even smelled nice.

Tails spent most of his time asking her questions about the world, drawing her out as he learned from her, tinkering and experimenting with the ship and various chemicals that he extracted over time. He took some notes at times, but modeled most of it in his head.

Sonic had planted crops and hunted lava-suchuses, a few species of bulette, sand squid, giant ants, hypnotoads, and velociraptors for her to eat, and to make the area safer for her; he'd mounted the remains around the castle to ward the predators away, drawn her out so that she no longer hunched into herself, and spoke above a hoarse whisper again, had preferences and opinions even, could finish a sentence and follow someone else's sentence all the way through; had taught her to fight.

Two years later, Tails had finally fixed what was wrong with the ship, and she was finally warm again. The continuous feeling of cold and tremors had left her. She was ready to kill Warbotdorf.

Easier said than done, but that's another story. During her exile, he'd become regent, and Pérdida his faithful sorceress... then Pérdida disappeared. Nobody knew anything about her since then, though doubtless Warbotdorf was at the bottom of it.

“...and with his recent coronation as Imperator, vouchsafed by the senate, that makes him the entire empire's new _Commander_ – literally.”

The same song as ever played in her mind, as she thought back to all of this.

_Your sweet nature darling_  
_was too hard to swallow,_  
_I got the solution,_  
_I'm leaving tomorrow,_  
_and now as I stand_  
_and stare into your eyes_  
_I see safety there –_  
_I want surprises..._

As she wrapped up her portion of the story, her awareness came back to the room. She'd lost track of it, almost in a trance, somewhere far away and safe as her mouth did the talking for her. Someone else's voice, someone else's story, the events merely reeling themselves off in her mind's eye like some shadow play from a magic lantern as she narrated, the words and pictures synched but all coming of their own accord. Her mind was still befogged as thoughts of her thoughts slid away sideways into the darkness. That voice, the one that had come from her mouth without attachment to herself, had taken on a distant monotone drone, a higher pitch, soothing, compartmentalized, depersonalized.

 _At some point, my eyebrows crept up and stayed there; my nostrils flared too, it seems. My face and limbs are stiff, shallow breathing in short sharp gulps, heart's pounding, eyes dry, throat hurts, and I feel a little queasy._ She massaged and twisted everything back into place, trying to feel comfortable in her own body again. _My whole head is killing me, massive knots at the base of my skull. It feels so heavy, and I can't remember any of what I just said, but at least I can think again. Though drained and exhausted as if having just finished a marathon, I don't feel the overwhelming need to fall asleep pulling me down anymore. I'm pretty certain that I told a much longer, more wholly detailed version of it all than I've ever done in one sitting. Far more so than I'd intended. Goddesses, what did I say? It doesn't matter. Everybody else already knows it all, and Peach deserves to know too. Has a right to know. Scheiße, I need to sleep..._

Then she caught sight of Peach. The look that Peach held shocked her; Zelda reached forward, hoping to reassure her.

“Hey – honey, I'm O.K.. I promise. It was all a decade and more ago. I'm over it now. Mostly. It's no big deal,” Zelda's voice was suddenly half of an octave higher than usual, a tone almost pushing at Peach as if she were seeking to calm a small child.

Peach had finished her second cigar and was just staring at her, tears having dried long before, her eyes now red with pain.

“I'll be alright, I just need to work out some kinks,” Zelda glanced around hurriedly, “I think you might need some more wine and another cigar,” care and concern washing over her face as she refilled Peach's glass and lit a third cigar for her, dragging hard on it to ensure a smooth and rich burn, then pushing both toward Peach, “mayhap this'll help a bit. Take them, O.K. sweetie? Please?”

Peach couldn't believe what she was seeing.

 _After everything that she just related, after reliving that hell, putting herself back there again just to answer a simple question, Zelda has no thought of herself in mind, only worry for_ me _? Trying to take care of me and make sure that_ I'm _alright..._

Peach's tears welled up once more, but still she said nothing, her throat tight and heart aching, instead simply climbing onto Zelda's lap with a leg to either side, drawing her into a hug, and holding her quietly for a long time.

**O ~~~ O**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1: Among Hylians, this indicates to all a clear mating, so strong as to change the biochemistry of the union with a unique scent unmistakable to a Hylian. Passing rare to affect any of non-Hylian blood.
> 
> 2: Equal parts cherry brandy and muscadine wine in wormwood casks soaked in absinthe, wedding brandywine is fortified with bridesbane, caffeine, theobromine, entheogens (mimosa hostilis root-bark and Syrian rue, jimson weed, solandra, yagé, peyote, ergot, psilocybe cubensis, and oven-cured amanita muscaria) and entactogens; cannabutter is added before the ceremony. The couple shares a dose at their vows. A weaker version is served at the reception, lightening / carrying the mood (meaning more couplings and moresomes that evening).
> 
> 3: Trapped in Jötunheimr Imperial Forest when it collapsed 36 miles downward into the newly formed Ginnungagap, survivors of the genetically diverse and unstable Jötnar, Trolls, Ogres, Ettin, and related species were forced into Stone Age conditions. The Æsir prosecuted this to near extinction with acuity-damping fields throughout (their modal average IQ is perhaps 50-60), and radioactive salts and phobia-mines belting it all to keep survivors crushed and unable to leave. This was c8500 BCE [c2205 AB, Light World calendar].
> 
> 4: Head-canon again; I'm guessing that Tails is thinking back to some off-camera conversation with Peach about octonions and E7 & E8.
> 
> 5: How many ways can you arrange them combinatorially? Doesn't matter which one you place first, second, third, etc., only the final result; whether you're building a Rubik's cube or a planet, the bits go where they go regardless of which bit is last.
> 
> Like Poincaré recurrence or quantum tunneling, but spatial rather than temporal. In the observable universe of ~10^26 m radius, there are ~10^80 particles within it (ignoring fluctuations). You can combine things in only so many ways before beginning to repeat them. Tegmark estimates that if the physical universe is spatially infinite, then a duplicate of our Hubble volume must occur within ~10^(10^115) m.
> 
> Take a smaller set of particles, enough to form something like a disk or hemisphere 10^8 to 10^10 miles in radius, tile a plane of ice with these, and a duplicate configuration would still have to occur; the physical data wouldn't look like our universe, but the underlying math remains applicable. Might be more obvious if we consider a circle with two triangles of colored dots in it: {red, yellow, blue} and {red, blue, yellow}; now make a third triangle with those same colors without repeating either of the first two patterns (my apologies to those who prefer RGB) – see the problem? You'll repeat one.
> 
> Say that you have a “universe” made of some frame in a film and the sequence of heads and tails that came up in a set of five [fair] coin flips for that frame of the film. Each frame would be one of a set of possibilities: H/T for the first flip, and again for the second, etc., for a total of 25 = 32 possible sequences. As you look at each frame of your film, you'll probably find a random mess of different sequences, but there's no rule here requiring that the film must contain every possible sequence and stop after 32 frames: it could be only 15 frames long, or 320 – and if it's more than 32, then nothing says that each sequence must occur the same number of times as any other. You could encounter a sequence that is identical to the next twenty frames, or doesn't recur in the next billion frames; no constraint exists to require a given sequence to even exist at all (they could all be identical, and the coin “inhabitants” could never tell that there were multiple universes therein).
> 
> 6: If you took the set of all of the natural numbers {0, 1, 2, 3, …}, then its measure would be aleph null [א0]. Adding to it wouldn't make it bigger, nor would multiplying, but taking the set of every all subsets {∅, 0, 1, 2, …, 0∩1, 0∩2, …, 1∩2, 1∩3, …, 0∩1∩2, …} gives you a "larger" set: power set 2^ℵ0. Continuum hypothesis is compatible with ZFC, but so is the lack of CH, so 2^ℵ0 can be taken as ≥ℵ1 maybe ℵ2 (the set of all functions) or higher. Hence beth one [ℶ1] for clarity's sake. Just go to StackExchange, Wikipedia, Wolfram MathWorld, DavidDarlingInfo, Quora, etc., and look into the terms used above (Cantor's diagonal slash might be helpful).
> 
> 7: Ancient Sheikah's finely nuanced tonality carries strong denotation effects.
> 
> 8: We can predict blood moons in the real world, but they can't in Light World.
> 
> 9: see Afterword for an analysis of Pérdida's likely genetic background (maybe Elf, maybe other – and no, Vadhagh aren't Elves).
> 
> 10: They mined nodules from the lava lake; aluminum, iron, magnesium, titanium, and some nickel, zinc, copper, and gold. There wasn't much, but the land was fertile enough to support crops, so the metals were traded for goods.


	8. Semper crescis, aut decrescis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **N.B.:** This chapter's footnote section is crammed, so I lack sufficient characters to even link back out to the main text, much less space for anchors in from the text, so you'll have to scroll back and forth or wait 'til you get to the bottom. Sorry about that! 😔
> 
> For the accompanying playlist / soundtrack, please see:  
>  ▐► <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPYG6DgnCJHFlFe-u_MuZiew>
> 
> Foodies: yes, there are recipes available for a good number of the foods mentioned herein. You can find them in “Appendix F: Recipes” (and some few in the commentary / annotation) of the .pdf of “Seize the Deity” at  
>  ▐► <https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BG7P_sVezz8Dn5b8js_34yeAjSBhfN0v>
> 
> **UPDATE 13 Jun 2020:** restored a deleted Nekomusume scene to the penultimate scene of this chapter.
> 
> ▼ Begin alpha ▼  
>  This chapter is unfinished as yet, and so there are portions that break the usual narrative flow, being outlined rather than fully fleshed out. Please forgive these, as I thought that it might be better to at least present them as-is than to make readers wait until I finally clean it up entirely.  
>  ▲ End alpha ▲
> 
> ▐► **For notes on how to change fonts and font colors and so forth, please see** [Fonts, and colors, and work skins, oh my!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28934610)
> 
>   
> 
> 
> * * *

“A'ight, so you guys got these dungeon keeps set up all along yer northeastern border ta keep out the big bad monsters. Got it.

“Ya got at least three of 'em that boost shit ta keep things goin'. Got it.

“Somewhere past the end of 'em is another spot that prob'ly got trashed, but that don't matter 'cause o' Schöndunkelundtief Forest bein' all around it. Got it.

“There's a bunch of 'em an' they all channel special magical energy inta some kinda invisible fence, forbiddin' them from crossin' the planet. Got it.”

▼ Begin alpha ▼

T: it's kind of a magic-zooic energy hybrid. They're called ley lines.

▲ End alpha ▲

“Got it. Fine. Here's my question though: why the fuck do they gotta have deep, dark, dungeons crammed with alla this power?”

“We've been over this three times, clodpate,” Zelda replied tiredly, “The dungeons are heat sinks of a sort, and the whole acts as a sieve. The monsters are attracted to it, but once past a critical point, they can progress only north or east, rather than return south or west, and furthermore are actively repulsed by the field.”

“See now, that's the stickin' point there. Hayya get 'em ta go through like?”

▼ Begin alpha ▼

P suddenly realizes that Sonic's off-world origins are why he's full of weird phrases

S: give the girl a cigar when she's old enough to smoke!

P blushes and grins, looking elsewhere rapidly

S: Oh... really? Do tell.

P: They feel good, and get me all... umm... y'know...

S: Frisky? Well, good fer you wit' the whole Korrasami thing. Glad ta hear you guys're doin' a'ight in that department there. Nice work getting' the spy ta love ya, Agent 86.

<P blushes furiously, but holds steady with a self-satisfied smile>

P So, you're a real live alien then, just like Kitana!

S Yeah... I'm a Way-Out. Eep opp ork, ah-ah – ya wanna go anal probe some cattle an' other farm animals wit' me, Scully?

Z: Don't. Just don't.

S: What? Don't say ' _Brown chicken, brown cow_ '?

Z: Aye. <sighs> That.

S: so lemme ask ya this, P. Alla this stuff about probability an' morpho-whatsis fields 'n' zeitgeists 'n' stuff. 'zat explain why alla these songs 'n' themes 'n' stuff keep comin' up all over the place?

P: Maybe, but I've no idea what you're asking exactly – except that you've definitely paid more attention than you admit. Morphogenic, by the way.

S: Yeah-yeah, sure-sure. Mind o' Morbius; got it. What I'm talkin' about is how back home – back on Möbius I mean – I kinda uploaded a bunch o' shit inta my memory, and actually watched some o' the really good stuff. Since comin' here, I ain't seen any of it around nowheres, 'cept it keeps comin' up – diff'rent singers, same songs; diff'rent actors, same plays or shows or whatever. I mean, you guys got a lot that I never seen before, but there's a bunch o' shit that I a'ready know an' it shows up here like a brand new idea, or sometimes it's an old one that I run across by accident. An' believe me, I got shit from a _lot_ o' diff'rent worlds.

P thought about this.

P: I need to talk with Tails about all of this, both to be sure that I really understand the answer before steering you poorly and simply because you now have me really curious, but basically... yes.

S: cool. So wuzzit mean?

P: that's part of what I need to talk with him about, but I think that it's two things mostly. One is simply probability, since it's kind of bound to happen someplace eventually. The other is the morphogenic fields that you mentioned; they might not be everywhere, but wherever they are, they'll have some weird vibrational effects on everything's consciousness. Oh, and maybe a third cause: simple cross-insemination; if there's any travel between worlds, then there's almost certainly going to be leakage.

Sonic's eyes slid sideways to Zelda.

S: “Did she just use ' _insemination_ ' and ' _leakage_ ' in the same breath, an' mean it seriously? She's gotta be fuckin' wit' me, right?”

=====

Koopa Kingdom. Permanent nightfall. Koopa's castle an earthberg floating just below the cloud deck.

Daimaō Koopa **1** : You don't call, you don't write...

Z: If you harm her, then I shall rain down on you such Hells that all of the Armageddons in creation will appear as mere practice with you solely in mind.

K: Droll but overwrought. Your little plaything is fine. We talked, and I found her quite enchanting really – delightful, even. You've chosen well, and I commend you on your taste, for once. Now you and I must talk. There are matters about which you know nothing and I've little time to educate you.

<Boosette **2** appears at his arm and wriggles against him, then manifests a drink, hands it to him, he nods his thanks, she offers same to Z; Z stares at her flatly, not having felt a thing when the drink appeared. What the hell magic had she used? K lifts eyebrow bored, exasperated tone proclaims it safe>

  
Z eyeballs Boosette's _Hello Kitty_ backpack in surprise.

K remarks that he never knows what she'll drag in next, she's worse than a cat; come to think of it, she has one of those, too – _Ghost Kitty_. Which reminds me: he has a rather irksome habit of popping up out of drains and such, so I advise that you exercise some caution in the toilet. In any event, she has her uses; we have an understanding, and it's a comfortable relationship.

Z curls lip in repugnance at his apparent base use of Boosette.

K asks how old she is _this_ time. 20? 30?

Z 29

K Tells her to get her head out of her pants.

P shows up, looking for Boo', runs to embrace Z.

K: I find her insights and nature to be of value to my studies, though I can't say what she gets out of being here.

P giggles, Z glances at her smile and turns a more analytic eye toward Boo'. Seeing how she looked at him, how her body leaned, she realized what he was blind to and joined P in a small smile. If Boo' hadn't made it clear, then it wasn't her place to say anything.

K: <sighs> Describes events of Sheikah Wars, simply coming awake slowly, becoming aware of events around himself and of his own self-awareness; that others acted as if players from a script. At first he'd continued to play the part that he'd found himself in, then came to question the course of events, and eventually to doubt the point of it all. He then withdrew himself from matters, finding over time that others had come awake, but not always acting sanely or in anyone's best interest – even their own. That cemented matters for him, and he'd declared his kingdom. Boo was one of the first he'd encountered like himself, others appearing in time, but too rarely.

To make matters worse, his favorite dish's key ingredient went extinct 1000 years ago.

K <looking directly at Z> Couldn't say this sooner, and can't say it more clearly lest it become a self-canceling prophecy. Save the cheerleader, <glances over toward P> save the world.

Z: I know not how you come to ken this, but that goal stands ever foremost in my mind.

S: Rescue the damsel in distress, kill the bad guy, save the world. Got it.

=====

The dungeon of Diablo holds the key to Warbotdorf's downfall deep within.

S: Least he didn't say Greyspine Mines...

=====

P: Mudhollow Inne... not animal-themed?

S: Yeah, probably got some special dispensation from a grandfather clause or some'n

Orc clans' diaspora; “reindeer” and yurts and belongings, and the occasional land-drakar **3** : panic, not war. Major trail intersection has orc skeletal remains pointing north with a word carved into the boulder in Uruk-lambo: gúrzum, death. The Orc's remains are covered in a mossy growth, with a couple of vines trailing from the feet.

Wolfen tribes to east rumored to be heading south as well.

▲ End alpha ▲

Scablands gave way to badlands, their northeasterly course now turning almost due east. The scent of granite became pervasive, even though all was sandstone for as far as the eye could see.

Leaving behind the northern estuary – where Peach had enjoyed tasting and learning to prepare the local specialties of multigrain bannocks with wild berry jam, herring eggs on spruce, a creamy leek and celeriac soup, camembert and smoked trout sautéed in butter and laid out on soda bread with a mild herbal sauce, mollusc stew (all pulled fresh from the shore at low tide, at which time Peach learned how to drive razor clams from their teardrop burrows by pouring a few spoonfuls of salt over them [the gaper clams, however, required actual digging from their more circular pits], and pulling sifting-woks of sand through tide pools to find handfuls of cockles and scallops, and overturning large-ish rocks to find octopodae attached thereto, and raking sand for conch and crab), ostrdactyl omelette with a variety of vegetables and tubers (a single omelette serving well to feed the entire party), deep fried seal with a sweet and tart pear-apple jelly that incorporated onions and vinegar, crispy grilled beaver tail, fatty moose intestine fried in fish oil, roasted black bear bottom round on buttered sourdough with a bone broth for dipping, oh-so-gently-boiled gulls' eggs, and a pleasantly citrus-like Labrador tea of rhododendron leaves with rosehips – and still arguing over who had broken the whack-a-mole machine at the last town, alternating between blaming one another and taking credit for it, the party pressed on into increasingly desolate lands.

That ended with the rocks.

Peach peered at the ground as they passed by.

“Why is there writing on this stone?”

Zelda looked to see what Peach had asked about.

“ ' _Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'entrate_.'?”

Sonic noticed the same, “Got another over here, same shit on it.”

“I see one too!” Tails added.

As they looked up and around, they realized that the area was covered in a band of stones, large and small, and all with the same words in different languages and scripts covering their western faces. The band stretched far to the north and south.

“Nonsensical ravin's of a lunatic mind...” Sonic shook his head.

Peach surveyed it all before they rode on, concluding “Only two stranger things spring to mind; the spontaneous combustion of the Mayor of Marsam in 5146, and that incident in 21st century Gurbundy when it rained herring.”

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Dinner: simple roasted lake salmon and duck with prickly pear; dates and toasted mesquite pod seeds for dessert. Sonic gripes about lack of lemon and butter, Peach thinks about a red wine and soy glaze with oranges and brown sugar. Sonic calls her a half-crazed Visigoth for the heresy of a red wine with fish... before muttering that it sounded like a good mix.

▲ End alpha ▲

Sonic soon held up a fist and they all fell silent.

Looking ahead to the focus of his concern, they could just make out a figure lying in their course.

“It looks like a Human, maybe ten years old or so, wearing an orange parka outfit...” Tails said as he collapsed his telescope.

He and Sonic began talking in jargon about thermite and jet fuel.

“Is he alright?” Peach asked.

Tails just stood there for a moment, unwilling to answer.

“He's dead.”

“How did he even get here? What happened to him? Shouldn't we bury him?”

Tails turned away, looking at the distant body, chewing his lips as he glanced at Sonic and back to Peach.

“That might not be a good idea, Peach,” he said, “You asked what he died from? Well, I can't diagnose much of anything at this distance, but from what I can see from here, he died of pretty much everything at once, except maybe surprise or pleasure. He has what I can describe only as a resigned look on his face. He's been stabbed, mauled, and shot. One leg is crushed and gangrenous, the other missing and what's left of it looks exsanguinated. Petechiae are consistent with strangulation, and he seems to have been poisoned, based on the green vomit. His cyanotic skin and mouth full of water make me wonder if he wasn't also drowned, and given the tinge, he might have been jaundiced as well. There's blood coming from his eyes and nostrils, consistent with Ebola; his face shows buboes, as if plagued; there are some lesions that could be anthrax and his skin texture looks leprous; his skin surface is dotted with what might be smallpox, though I can't be certain.”

Everyone was in shock at his words, aside from Sonic and himself.

Peach finally found herself and voiced what they were all thinking, “Who could have done such a thing though? It's unimaginable!”

Sonic looked around.

“Warbotdorf comes to mind... that byastid!”

=====

▼ Begin alpha ▼

P: “I've read about these things. They're called Pac-ghosts. You don't actually have to outrun them, so much as out-think them.”

S: “So much fer fuckin' Intel, fuckin' FUBAR shit-show. Facts onna ground trump it every time. Fuck it. We improvise, same as ever.”

P: “Or maybe out-move them would be a better phrasing...”

S: “Look, P, I don't give a shit if I gotta out- _house_ 'em, I just wanna get _past_ 'em.”

P: “As long as you know their routines, it should be pretty easy.”

S: “And d'ya happen ta know their routines?” he asked hopefully.

P: “Yes. Sort of. It's not exactly their routines individually or collectively so much as interactively – it looks as if some of them flock, while others avoid, and then there are a few that just do their own different things such as chasing or ambushing or random movements; I'm also fairly sure that they can change between a couple of different behaviors. There's a bunch of them here, and the emergent behavior of the whole is strongly synergetic, but ultimately no worse than a cellular automaton.”

Peach hesitated, seeing Tails's face as he considered this, his fingers doing a small dance.

“Well, I mean, they're really Langton ant-like, it's just that the automata jump to mind.”

Tails screwed up his face, “The ants could be emulated in a cellular automata environment with an appropriate rule-set.”

“Ooh, nice!” Peach replied enthusiastically.

S: “Meanin'...”

P: “Meaning that I can do it, I just need a little time to analyze things.”

Z: “ _That's_ my _geek_!” <cheerfully, smiles warmly, brushing side of P's hair>

S: “Y'know what I wouldn't give ta deal wit' visions o' sugarplums or some'n? Just once?”

P: “Ooh, I have some good recipes for those! We can go over them later, if you'd like! And that reminds me: I was thinking about an idea for chewy maple candies with a coffee crème coating...”

Z: “A-a-and... we're off chasing shiny squirrels again...”

She lowered her head, placing her face in her palm, and wondered idly if Warbotdorf had moments like these with his evil minions. _He likely just has them killed on the spot, but_ surely _I'm not the only one?_

=====

Dead thwomps strewn about.

S: “Well, fuck me runnin'...”

Meet Puck.

Ruru: lælolɛlu; rɛrulelu lɑʔɑː. lɑ̃lolɑ̃lylulɛ lolo lɑꜛlĭ?

Puck: wɪwo.wiwɛ.wəwɑ̃.wowɑ̃.ɽæɽɪ ɽyɽu.ɽɛ ɽoɽɛ.ɽoɽi.

Ruru: ll... lolɛlo ləlæləlelɹli lylulɛ lɑꜛlĭ?

Puck: wɪwo.wiwɛ.wəwɑ̃.wowɑ̃.ɽæɽɪ.ɽæɽi.ɽuwɛ.ɽæɽɪ ɽoɽɛ.ɽoɽi. wɑꜛɽĭ wowɛ.ɽo wəwæ.ɽəɽɛ.ɽowa.wi ɽyɽu.ɽɛ?

Ruru: 'to... anata wa Nihongo o hanasemasu ka?

<Puck blinks incomprehension.>

Ruru <sighs> → party: This is going to take a little while...

<Ruru later mentions that Puck thinks Warbotdorf's an asshole, clarifying that his exact wording had been “shit-downer”, which had context that gave her the impression of someone shitting from above and not caring who or what it hits.>

Drawn to them by their emotions.

Ruru explains the difference, that he's a natural creature, an air yōsei, not a Kaijin.

Puck tells of a strange stone, a blue-green thing with surreal facial carvings that change over time. Warbotdorf calls it a behelit. It was Warbotdorf's desire that had drawn Puck to him.

“You shittin' me?”

Z: “You keep looking back. What are you expecting to see?”

S: “Don't expect shit. Just wonderin' if Gollum is gonna show up or some'n – an' I ain't all that jokin'. He's gotta know we'd be out here event'chully, or someone would anyway, so how come we're still fuckin' around like a Sunday afternoon stroll wit' no worries?”

Titans and χθόνια in Dantean punishment situations

▲ End alpha ▲

=====

“What manner of twice-damned things are these?”

“I think ya just answered yer own question there, Z. Twice damned... _things_. An' this time, I don't think ' _Klaatu verata necktie_ ' is gonna do fuck-all – we had Jack shit, now Jack left town an' took the shit with 'im. Still though, I guess the spice must flow.”

Zelda didn't even bother to slap him.

They stared out over the plain.

Some of the abominations were reasonably familiar: the Titan-like Dead Hands lurching slowly from their low centers of gravity and surrounded by small packs of ReDead, walking piranha plants with long and glistening whip-like stamina darting from their receptacles, adamantine Chain Chomps, cybernetically modified faunae.

Parts of the plain crawled with masses of indescribable horrors – giant worms with squid-like tentacles ending in hooks, scores of eyes, and great fanged mouths festooning their bodies.

Other areas showed hazy patches of an electric-purple fog that made the eye water as if trying to see in a direction that wasn't there, unnatural creatures and putrescent green bolts pouring forth. Leech-mouthed women with scimitar-sized scorpion claws, goat-headed daemons with four arms, bloated things covered in pustules and leaking fumes, pink and blue masses with crescent-moon heads and parrot beaks, giant maggots with crab legs, rat-people with advanced tech-weapons and unspeakable mutations.

It seemed as if the air itself were whispering. Just below the threshold of hearing. Foul secrets that would drive insane any who heard.

A sense of doom settled on them. What hope could there possibly be, facing such a force?

▼ Begin alpha ▼

On the butte overlooking Warbotdorf's badlands base.

S passes the photo-gravitic binoculars to Z. Z adjusts the depth-penetration, spots what S had seen.

Pérdida in time-stasis, locked at moment of greatest anguish as her soul is ripped out of her body, the very split second of her death.

Z [Pérdida à la Rigoletto]: “Erstwhile love, la donna è mobile”;

P: “So... la donna: _immobile_?”

All laugh

P: Oh, crap – Zelda, I'm so sorry! I wasn't thinking! Shit!

Z: Fuck her blaggard ass. She took a hike. Not my problem anymore. The attern trollop sought power, sold me out, and got played.

The gulf between herself and who she'd been all those years before made alien the sight before her now. She remembered it all, though in a hazy, indistinct gestalt, packaged as if in a snow globe frozen in time. Pérdida's destruction meant nothing to her beyond it being some fact that happened to be evident – indeed, Pérdida's machinations to destroy her when they'd been together were themselves now only so many dry, irrelevant data, meaningless and divorced from who she'd become. And yet for all of her bluster, a small and distant echo of herself in former days still couldn't help feeling a twinge of pity, knowing what had finally become of Pérdida.

P feels bad for Pérdida, but worse for Zelda.

Their best guess is that Pérdida is being used as Warbotdorf's psionic battery to power his conjurings. This is Warbotdorf's key to power.

That night, Z dreamt of a large gathering of people on a beautiful sunlit day, perhaps a town picnic, she couldn't be sure. The scene changed quickly to one of a deserted town by night, clearly having been ravaged by something, the wind whistling through buildings without a soul to be seen. She was one of a dozen or so people huddled away within one of these buildings. One of their number had reached forth toward the front door and she'd called out quietly for them not to, that it wasn't safe, but it had already been too late. The warning still leaving her lips, an evil witch with glistening dark green skin and corpse eyes burst her head through the gap of the door that stood barely ajar, and then there was only panic, blood and screaming, and then silence. Ichor spattered about. Skulls opened to the air. Death and a burning cold that seared its way through her very core.

Each night for the next week saw Z wracked with such terrors, P by her side through them all.

The last night, Z dreamt that she lived in a small and solidly built house, and had closed and locked all of the windows and blinds and drapes against Pérdida, yet someone had opened them all. Dreading that Pérdida would gain entrance thus, she rushed to seal them all again, but as she drew up on the door, Pérdida rounded the corner. Seeing her, Pérdida flew into a screaming rage, tearing at the door and demanding to be let in. In moments, she had torn apart the very framework of the doorway. Z called the Night Watch in a panic as Pérdida fled, but when morning came, she found that she'd received orders to the desert of Central Rygar, and she feared what might become of her cat should Pérdida return while she was away.

=====

At Tor Diablo, lying on a massive ley line nexus, recently battling the last of the thinning waves of giant centipedes and millipedes, and subsequently replenishing their stocks of smoked meat.

Having skirted the territory of a tribe of Swamp Marmots **4** , and finally leaving behind the saber-toothed mud weasels and packs of cat-weasels, they opted for a causeway approach, playing hide and seek with the moat monsters in the process, rather than walk through the front door. The moat monsters were squishy things with yard long maroon eye-stalks, squid-like olive-green tentacles of several paces a piece, and huge sturgeon-like bodies, their backs lined with venomous barbs that they could direct, and their mouths swarmed with pedipalps, maxillae, and chelicerae beneath a wicked rostrum. Their skin was as tough as steel, but pliant, with a thick layer of blubber beneath – blunt weapons bounced off, and edged or piercing weapons must penetrate sufficiently far before incurring any real [HP, rather than mere SDC] damage. The debilitating inky-ooze that they secreted made them difficult to grapple as well as causing hallucinations if ingested or absorbed through skin or mucosa.

Sonic was pushing to capture at least one for a roast before going dungeon crawling. Zelda ignored this and whispered an incantation, causing a mist to rise from the waters, obscuring them from the moat monsters' many eyes.

As each side prepared for a climactic resolution, Peach realized that Pérdida was no battery – she was a capacitor, or more akin to a step-up transformer.

Standing before the fresco, the party hesitated.

“I know that it would get us down sooner, like an elevator, but isn't there an off-chance of mishap?”

Peach was uncomfortable about the the long-dead portal, and had argued in favor of the stairs. The stairs, on the other hand, were in poor repair, showed signs of some use, and were likely rigged against intruders.

“Where's Nodwick when ya need 'im?” Sonic sighed, “Ground floor: perfumery, stationery an' leather goods, wigs 'n' haberdashery, kitchenware an' food; going _down_...”

Zelda ignored this as she channeled arcane energies to activate the portal directly to the fourth level, second layer, her will and words giving them purpose.

“We need ta get through this level _fast_. I dunno what kinda shit His Grand Ego-ness has planned, but I guaran-freakin'-tee ya the motherfucker's got this place surveilled like a _motherfucker_.”

All about them were exploded sheep carcasses strewn throughout the area.

“We're he-e-ere... place could maybe use some spooky theme music. Some'n forebodin' fer now, then really tense later on. Hey, any o' you think them sheep mighta been suicide... _baa_ -ers?”

This time, Zelda slapped him across the back of his head.

Making their way through the level, they encountered no resistance at first. There were numerous skeletal remains of various species that had succumbed to traps now long triggered or disarmed, or merely out of power or ammunition.

At first, Peach tried to catalog them all – pressure plates and squeezing walls, light beam thresholds and javelins, pressurized salts and secret doors within sarcophagi, collapsing floors and snake pits, cantilevered halls and flaming oil – but there were so many, and they went through them so quickly, that she had to hope that she could recall them all later for study.

Eventually the remains began to peter out, the traps grew more frequently active, the bodies were more fresh.

S: Seriously Z, this don't pan out. Yer sayin' that this place is _supposed_ ta be a death trap? I done that before. Only place I ever seen it was Warbotdorf's trainin' deathmazes on Möbius. Nobody does this shit just fer fun or whatever.

Z: The whole is designed to funnel everything generally north-northeast. Sometimes monster species move into an area and stake it for their own, then they trap it; eventually, they die out or suffer hostile takeover and the new ones repeat the process. Over generations, the layers of traps become nigh on an impassable thicket throughout.

After two hours, they reached their first live threat.

S: Avocado, squash, and passion fruit... seriously, what's wit' this place an' the décor?

Z: Giddy Goons.

S: And now with the purple opossums and baboon lips. What kinda ass-hat god-wannabe thought these up an' stuck 'em here of all places?

Ruru casts a _Sleep_ ensorcellment, dull points within diffuse pastel puffs drift down on them quickly.

Ceiling drips constantly, loads of pink noise.

Fire bats. Horned hoop-dillo shows up to devour corpses.

S: Look, I'm just sayin' the stonework's gorgeous an' all, but where's alla the wood come from in the first place? An' who's lightin' alla these torches anyways?

Turning the corner, they see a sprawling room with stairs and pavilions strewn about at random. A cemetery was laid out in the far corner. The roof was lost in a murky haze in a color palette of bruises. Hematite slugs; slime is sticky and caustic.

Zelda melts ground to slow them: large pale gray-blue bubbles forming from the surface, chains of smoke wrapping around their flailing eye-stalks; party bum-rushes them with improvised blunt weapons.

Cavernous room with a red-toned black and blackened red motif. Massive Trolls chained by all entryways; Minotaurs with multiple scorpion-tails from their backs and armed with war-cleavers embracing the dominance over the lesser species present. Flying buttresses every thirty feet. Pedestals and toppled pillars, colossal chains, fire pits roasting beasts best left unidentified. Smoky brick-red Fu Lions underfoot all about. Enslaved monsters played an odd rhythmic music with hollow tubes in sand to complete the ensemble.

S: Great... a troll-level...

P: Ooh! You have your scary music now, Sonic!

S: Yeah. Just what we needed...

Climb giant idol of a horned rat (ruby eyes as large as their heads; Sonic attempts to prise one, but fails) enwrapped by a sort of two-headed snake-thing. Gables cross ceiling, beginning just above top of idol.

S: Hold tight.

P: <distractedly> Tightly; adverb.

T: <shakes head> Tight. You'd need the adjective in this case because he's trying to express that it's the purpose of the grip _itself_ to be a tight one, not the manner of the gripping – like dressing _warm_ , not _warmly_.

P: <pauses> Are you sure? ' _Tight_ ' can be an adverb, but–

S: Maybe focus on the task at hand f'now, an' save the Readin' Rainbow shit fer later guys? Freakin' mishegas.

Sneak across joists, dust trickles down into flagon unnoticed, escape.

Floor sharks.

S: Ain't seen a single pisser yet.

Z: Didn't you just go a few minutes ago?

S: Yeah, but there ain't no bathrooms.

Z: And?

S; So where do _they_ go? The monsters, I mean. An' where's it all go _to_? Tails can prob'ly see what I mean. The place should be fulla shit 'n' rotten corpses everywhere. Hell, where's it all even come from in the first place – I mean, like, what do they eat? An' don't say each other. What's the _foundation_ o' their ecology? What's keepin' it all goin? Ya can't tell me they all rely on random parties ta just stroll on in an' turn 'emselves inta lunch.

Z: Your point is?

S: This place. Ya said it goes all along the towers an' inta the forest, right? So it just hit me... alla this is just one honkin' colossal cave, right? Ya got some'n like five or six thousand miles o' this shit?

Z: <thinks for a moment> Aye, right about that.

S: An' again I ask: 'zat sound normal t'you?

Z: Aye. Why shouldn't it?

S: A dungeon thing, sounds like a mile or two across a lotta the time, God knows how freakin' deep, an' it goes on fer a few thousand miles. Nuttin' funny there, eh?

Z: We tried asking the monsters to play nice, but they weren't having it.

S: That ain't the _point_! Who the hell does this? I mean, ya don't exactly have a mega-construction company in the yellow pages, an' yer magic don't look like it's up ta this kinda job.

Z: The line is ancient. It was our last defense in dark times.

S: Yeah, great, I get that. It still don't explain _how_ the hell it got here or who _made_ it.

P considers this, filing it away for future research. It had never occurred to her – it was simply part of the way that the world was, an ancient thing that had stood the test of millennia – and it felt... strange to think on it now, her mind shying away from the topic. That this hadn't crossed her mind before struck her as odd, given her self-model. That fact alone bore its own need for consideration at some later time.

P: Sonic? I'm having trouble thinking about this. Zelda, can you focus on it at all?

S cocks his head curiously.

Z: I am. He asked about the dungeon, and I told him it's been here forever.

P: Precisely. Who made it?

Z: Ancient mages in dark times.

P: Uh-huh, but _who_?

Z: Why does it matter?

P: Because I don't remember ever actually learning anything about it. It simply _is_ , and everyone dismisses it as some ancient wonder – as if _that_ explains anything at all. It's not as if a million slaves could have chipped it out of granite with copper chisels and stone hammers. Even the Mushroom Kingdom's technology isn't up to this kind of a task. And I'm really having a lot of trouble even putting together these sentences.

Sonic arched his brow sharply, eyes narrowing, burrowing into her.

“Waddya mean ' _trouble_ '?”

“I can't keep my questions in mind. They skitter away sideways and I keep finding myself looking at some pretty part of the wall or something instead.”

“I ain't got that problem. Tails? Ruru? You guys followin' alla this shit? Got any trouble with any of it?”

They nodded and shook their heads in succession.

“An' Z? How 'bout'chu?”

“I don't care about it. It's an old hole in the ground and it serves its function. What's to follow?”

His eyes narrowed further, thinking this over. Not just her reply, but her very response itself.

“O.K., P, ya got me. You guys got some'n real funny-like goin' on in yer heads, an' it don't seem ta be doin' shit ta us. You guys're locals, so maybe it's genetic, or there's some crazy mind-field dampin' yer thoughts about it. Whatever it is, it ain't in the water.

We gotta get back ta that, but right now ain't the time. Don't worry though, _we'll_ remember for ya – Tails, yer on this one, right?”

Tails nodded very seriously.

Peach smiled and gave them both a relieved look of thanks before relaxing back to watching the floor sharks' dorsal fins drift around lazily across the stone surface.

Resting atop a precipice, they looked out across a vast chamber. Part of the gloom was broken up by the glow coming from a distant cascade of magma, the depths receding into darkness and areas of bioluminescent fungi, while the walls showed veins of feebly glowing crystals.

The remains of dinner lay around them – a giant spider's exoskeleton and a house-sized mushroom's rinds that they were using as fuel for their fire. Turning from his indecision over whether the mutant were closer to portobello or chanterelle, Sonic eyeballed their immediate route.

S: How much longer we got, Z? An' are ya sure we're headin' the right way?

Z: Nayru, yes! The entire line is laid out in a simple continuous track from end to end; there are some forks between levels, and obviously minor detours to chamber systems on either side, but it's simply not meant to be a labyrinth. There's no knowing just where he'll be, but aye, we're close now.

S: Is it just me, or has it gotten real deserted down here, the past few levels?

Sonic watched as a snake-like thing bounced along the face of a nearby cliff, kangaroo-like in its spring-coiled form.

S: Also, I ever mention you guys got a _lotta_ weird shit in this place?

Z: Aye, more than once.

P: The mushroom was really good! Kind of like the body of shiitake, with a robust portobello flavor, but not too strong, and a little undercurrent of truffle. It went really well with the spider, too.

Z: I'm not sure if I should cut your time around him or increase it.

T: Well, they did go together really well.

R: Mm-hmm, and the spider had a natural cod-like flavor to it that went great with the smoky mesquite from the burning mushroom! I only wish that we had some ghee and lemon...

S: An' maybe some chestnuts.

T: Chestnuts...! <his tails wagging rapidly at the thought>

Z: Nayru help me, I'm _surrounded_ by him, now.

Sonic grinned to the others, as he peered into the gloom, “Y'know, call me Arne Saknussemm if ya want, but I saw some'n _big_ scuttlin' around down there a little while ago. Once we reach the floor o' this next gallery, we can maybe catch us some'n that might be remotely related ta lobster...”

=====

S <banging steel pipe against stone wall>: War-bot-dorf, come out an' pla-ay... War-bot-do-o-orf, come out an' play-ay...

They'd traveled long and far to reach this point, and S was in the mood to really enjoy it.

R: you know, there's a word in lelrli for pure evil. “ _loloollolo_.” It's a little complicated, but it implies crazy, unpredictable, and utterly malicious.

T asks spelling in odd voice.

R spells in Common equivalent.

T: So... 1010011010?

R nods after a moment of thought, looks on expectantly.

T: Odd coincidence.

R keeps looking.

T: Binary. That number has some significance in other worlds, and represents ultimate evil to some.

=====

W: You received my invitation then, I take it?

S: Dead kid, bunch o' stones? Yeah, yer a real subtle one fer that.

W: Gaze upon my works!

S: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Really? Yer _really_ gonna do this? Tell ya what, ya need ta talk wit'cher scriptwriters. First off, ya got the quote wrong. Next, not really all that original. Finally, just a little O.T.T., y'know?

R: <jerks head around> You do that all of the time!

S: No, I paraphrase fer effect and make allusions ta reach for somethin' ya can't express simply; it's artistic license. He's just a freakin' two-bit hack. There's a difference.

R makes disbelieving face.

Warbotdorf's plan: Pérdida's temporal stasis acts like a dam, building up a backlog; being a sorceress means that it's a big dam, and being other-worldly (of some alien Eldrin phylum, yes, but as a Wendigo [this not being a species, but rather a psych template like 3.x D&D and something like alignment]) means that her life force is connected to a world-pond far from Light World. When that thread snaps and like calls to like, the released tension double integrates with the temporal flood, resonating with one another. This feeds into the Grue through a psychic link that he'd established long ago between them and her, with the Ley Lines chaining back to the Vampire Aeries (Lumley's _Necroscope_ [see also MasterBook / West End Games]; ghouls akin to “ _Lifeforce_ ” and “ _Night of the comet_ ”) on Mount Ouroboros, paravolving the Grue into multiple subspecies (neither upward nor downward, but sideways in time, into what-if) – Xenomorphs, Bioraptors, Chtorran Gastropedes, and Harvesters ( _ID4_ ). Their dead victims become contagious zombies, their escaped victims (non-contagious) either Firefly Reavers or CHUD-Crawlers ( _The Descent_ ). The megadeaths from their release upon the world feed into a Ley Line surge, bringing about his apotheotic Ascension. Emeralds channel chaos energies without being affected themselves. Golden rings superconduct gravitomotive induction field. All of this bridges to shadow level tunnels (super mario). Beneath the machine yawned a chasm.

Z: Hello. My name is Zelda Hylia. Ye killed my family. Prepare tae die.

W explained, as if Z had never said a word: I investigated this pit more than any other weak point in this pathetic world. There's an entire realm down there, though only through here – simply burrowing through the ground anywhere else would lead only to stone. There's even a hidden palace there, and a large body of water.

S: I'm the one with a program in my head, but I swear all you fuckers read'jer lines outta the same play book every single fuckin' time.

Z: Fucking mentiroso... the lowest form of life in existence. You lie even with the truth.

W: <ignores Z> Of course, you simpleton. Own fault, designed you that way. No closer, else destroy whole world!

R: _temee – gomi!_

S glances at mech, others shrug.

wbd machine slowly gyrating golden rings, infinitely deep at center floats a single perfect chaos emerald cut to an omegahedron. P feels pull to fall in.

wbd plan orig for Z but perd was plan B. groomed z, needed psych template for destruction and transmutation, but more one way to skin a cat... or a hedgehog.

S: sound like villain in a b movie. You been drinkin' yer own Kool-Aid again?

W: they failed. Idiots. Perd is a wendigo, you see. Aside from her sorcery making a bridge to another world-pond, her very nature is consumed with consuming others. This will feed the artificial psychomorphic field! Do you see? The noosphere itself will become infected even as the death toll spreads.

Z's eyes took in the flows of magical energies and the technological apparatus itself, then wandered across both forces gathered around it, the living beings that stood to suffer through it all.

W: Ahh, you begin to make the connection, I see. Yes, that's the secret that lies beneath your precious Triforce – poetic, is it not?

S: pride and fall, asswipe. _Vaffanculo_. <scratches thumb quickly outward beneath chin>

W: I'll give you this one chance. Join me, and after some appropriate punishment you will command my minions... those that survive.

S doesn't bother answering.

W: And you, Prower. <turning to Tails> Surely _you've_ more intelligence than this gnat turd?

T: <looks apologetic> I'm sorry, sir, but it's the right thing to do.

W looks disgusted. “ _Whelp_.”

Z tensed

W: don't even think of it my dear...

Her eyes burned at this, memories of her first months alone coming to the fore.

▲ End alpha ▲

It was then that Peach chose to hurl herself into the machine. As she did so, the behelit in Warbotdorf's hand shrieked and shriveled, demonstrating its own will in rolling away even as he grasped at it, betraying him to his death. Zelda screamed and lurched after her, only to have Sonic haul her back bodily, Tails and Ruru joining to hold her from the same fate.

Warbotdorf stared at the fetish in disbelief as the engine began to hum, energies building within it.

“Tanj – curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!”

Sonic sneered indifferently at Warbotdorf, “All your base are belong to us. So sad, too bad, buh-bye. Oh, and umm... you'd prob'ly prefer some'n like shah mat, but... I'm'a go wit' _Carthago delende est_ , motherfucker.”

As his body began to fade, his skin charring and floating into the air in glowing flakes and wisps, Warbotdorf gazed at each in turn, “You think you have won. What is light without dark? What are you without me? I am a part of you all – you can never defeat me; we are brothers, eternal...”

The engine was built to shift time. Duhan was caught in a loop. The oracle had revealed that only a sacrifice, pure of heart, could bridge the two. It all made sense now. And now Zelda intended to sacrifice herself to save the world.

Moments of her time with all of the party crossed her mind in a flash. One stood out almost teasing her. Superimposed over the moment of Warbotdorf dropping his stone was the memory of Sonic capturing a stone. There were other kō threats present, and she'd had to decide whether to reply, and where the greatest threat stood. The wrong move could see his next moves bring about a greater kō, but dismissing it out of hand would have been disastrous, as she'd noted after a moment's contemplation.

Then she knew.

Having crept toward the pit from curiosity, ignored by all, Peach watched for her moment, biding her time until Warbotdorf was thoroughly engrossed with the others and his own oration; unable to bear what would happen to Zelda, she threw herself into it in her stead.

Her eyes closed, Peach held tight to the memory of their last kiss.

_Farewell, my love. I'm sorry..._

The engine released time, shadows and fragments of what used to be sweeping outward, expelled with accelerating force. Dark light passed through everything at the same point in space. A wave crossed their minds, the universe exploding silently, like taffy being pulled and twisted in directions that couldn't exist, while yet remaining trapped in amber.

The moment passed and all were released. Zelda collapsed to the ground, her heart shattered. Staring into herself, she receded from the world, from life, from all of existence.

_The one thing that was pure – who should have remained and been kept safe, cherished, revered – gone. My light, my life... my everything. She was a fucking innocent!_

Peach's body was torn away, atom by atom. An eternity passed in the blink of an eye. She remembered now what she had lost.

_I am Ōkami. My job is done; I am free now. I may return home._

Turning toward the distant lights, she felt a pull from deep within her being.

_I see trees of green,_  
_red roses too,_  
_I see them bloom_  
_for me and you,_  
_and I think to myself_  
_what a wonderful world..._

Peach touched her shoulder, and Zelda nuzzled the ghost in her mind. Peach kissed Zelda's cheek, the soft caress of her hand recalling Zelda to a better time in another place, another life.

Zelda stared into Peach's eyes for what felt like hours, knowing that it couldn't last, fearing that she'd soon return to her mind, to the bleak world around her, alone again.

Peach lifted Zelda's face, rubbing her nose across Zelda's nose and cheekbone, down her ear and neck. _Honeysuckle_.

She smiled, her eyes shining.

“I love you Zelda. I'm not going anywhere.”

Zelda finally broke. Her tears hot, acid. Whimpers escaped her throat as her body convulsed.

“ _You rise like a wave in the ocean,_  
_and you fall gently back to the sea._  
_Now I want to know how to hold you._  
_Return to me..._  
_return to me..._

_You shine like the moon over water,_  
_and you darken the sky when you leave._  
_Now I want to know how to keep you._  
_Return to me..._  
_return to me..._  
_turn to me,_  
_return to me..._

“I love you too, my princess,” she whispered, her elegy complete, her soul a hollow shell, “ _Fear no more the heat o' the sun, nor the furious winter's rages..._ ”

She leaned her forehead into Peach's chest.

“Why? It was supposed to be me.”

Peach looked perplexed.

“Zelda? It's O.K.. We got the bad guy.”

Zelda's head remained bowed.

“Aye. And at what cost? You're dead, and I'm crazed.”

“Zelda, I'm _right here_. I _love_ you.”

Zelda looked up. Shock battled relief, complete incomprehension winning out.

“But how...?”

“The prophecy never actually said that anyone had to die, only that a sacrifice occur. I sacrificed myself so that you might live, but... it turns out that I'm not what I thought, or at least not _solely_ what I thought. The point is that I'm here. For _you_. Alive. And I'm not going anywhere.”

Zelda whooped and screamed out laughing, picking Peach up by the waist and whirling around. Peach held on and laughed with her.

Finally setting her down, Zelda refused to let her go, showering her with kisses, squeezing her to reassure herself that Peach really was there.

“There are going to be a few changes though, you perv,” Peach said.

Zelda nodded vigorously – no price mattered, as long as Peach were with her again.

“You know that little game that you like to play? The one where you have me wear that furry cat suit and pretend that my collar has turned me into your _widdow hypno-bimbo pway-ting_?” Zelda nodded again, grimacing, knowing that she'd fucked up big time.

“Uh-uh, no more of that. I have a surprise for you,” Peach told her firmly, “ _Suh-pwise mis-twess!_ ”

Zelda's mouth dropped open, her loins throbbed and took on a wobble.

Peach stood before her, transformed into a Nekomusume in a French maid's uniform.

“I made a few modifications when I put myself back together,” Peach wrinkled her nose, grinned, then scratched her cat-like ear, cleaned her whiskers, and batted the air. “Nyaa?” Her tail curled into sight.

Zelda's eyes roved over Peach. “Your ears and tail, those teeth – this fur...?”

“Mm-hmm, it's all real!” Peach looked up into Zelda's face, her own facing downward, her eyes large with an innocent look.

Zelda peered down at Peach's shirt, a hopeful expression crossing her face. “So does this mean that you now have eight...” leaving the question dangling.

“Nope,” Peach said apologetically, “but I can!” giving Zelda a challenging and wholly unapologetic look that said _I dare you to fuck me completely senseless – right here, right now_.

Zelda squinted at her. “Oh, you little _minx_ !”

“...and if memory serves, you really liked that little Usamimi number too, right? Speaking of which, I might not be a Shy Gal, but just wait 'til you see my plans for your little ' _mountaineer_ '.”

Exiting the machine's chambers, they found the rest of the party morose and lost in thought until they realized that Peach had made it. The others rushed her for hugs.

She explained that she couldn't remember everything from before, but that she knew that Warbotdorf was now caught in a red-shifted time loop. Where he was, time would pass infinitely slowly, and would repeat sequences in variation until he gained insight and compassion, if he weren't first released or to somehow escape. They'd have to hunt down the zombies, since he'd created them locally, but the creatures that he had half-ported in would dissolve back to their home realms fairly soon, and Pérdida would... go someplace appropriate – she couldn't remember anything more-detailed than that, but she was sure that it would be something helpful and positive in the end. The Ōkami had planned it all out millennia ago, including the Sheikah Wars.

“So... big badda-boom, an' close wit' a Matrix,” Sonic summarized, “Fuckin' A, it's _Miller time_.”

And while Peach's explanation had covered the details of events and their precursors, it also left Zelda with a small knot of fear spreading slowly through her core, infusing her with the shadow of trepidation. _She's wonderful, and that alone is difficult enough in seeking to be worthy of her love – on top of which she has shown herself in every way to be so much more than I could ever have hoped or dreamt of – to attempt to live up to whatever she sees in me. How now am I to live up to her being Ōkami?_

**O ~~~ O**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 A powerful maō [demon-king of the Mazoku and Majin], and has reigned over the kingdom as daimyō since the Sheikah wars, hence my portmanteau. Sustained by infernal energies, he dabbles deeply in the necromantic arts (eschewing yōki), garnering power and information alike, though content to maintain his borders without interest in expansion; all within his realm contribute life force ever so slightly, with a staggering cumulative effect. None of this is secret.
> 
> 2 She is a ghost. No ghosts are known to exist, or even be possible, within Light World. She and Ghost Kitty are anomalies whom Daimaō Koopa studies; he doesn't experiment on them directly. Each can choose their degree of substantiality, though Ghost Kitty's ability is rather more limited in strength and duration; only she can decide things into existence by manifestation.
> 
> 3 Nomadic, they raid villages of any species for slaves, goods, and beasts of labor. Yurts are battle hardened, so a raid involves the whole clan unless settled into a spot for a bit and the raid is one of opportunity by a small party on a hamlet or a thorp. There is no division of labor between sexes, only bearing of children; individuals gravitate to one pursuit or another by their tastes and skills, and the social needs and opportunities; there's no lineage differentiation: if you can do the job, then it doesn't matter if you're the chief's kid or a freed slave (they're aware of the slave species not being Orcs, they just don't give a damn) - likewise, if you're useless, then you're useless.
> 
> Typically some 10% of a clan is non-Orc slaves for general labor, sex toys (of any slave sex, for either Orc sex), and specific work (this varies according to attributes, and Orcs are extremely equal opportunity in this, taking even the odd Goblin or Ogre slave). After some time (typically 5 years; sometimes 2, rarely 10), the slaves may stay or leave; many choose to stay as members of the Orc clan. Escaped slaves are hunted for no more than three sunrises; the hunt is often pursued no more than a single day or night.
> 
> If they find a child lost in the woods and can't find where it belongs, or it seems neglected or mistreated, they'll feed it and will simply continue doing so, whatever their species; children are fundamentally the responsibility of the entire community.
> 
> Orcs have strong genes compatible with most sophont species, the offspring being free to stay or leave. Either option offers value, but each carries its own challenges. Slaves are traded causally, but treated fairly well; their purpose is purely practical rather than economical. They may be pressed into any service by anyone (including another slave), if not already busy (not while attending their own needs [food, sleep, etc.]). They are also traded more judiciously beyond the clan – again, for simple reasons of practicality.
> 
> Features vary – She-Hulk, LotR, and WoW are all reasonable descriptions, disparate though they are (1e D&D porcine uncommon); hints of Bugbear and Hobgoblin also appear. Skin tone ranges: light spring, medium grass, hunter (most common), deep olive (literal color of olives, not the human skin tone). Eyes most often dark blue, medium magenta, or sharp yellow. Hair typically blackish, russet, or pea green, with the usual variation of specific tones and highlights.
> 
> Anything that they can eat is always appreciated, but won't be finely seasoned, or balanced nutritionally. Stew is simply hot water with a bunch of ingredients (probably chopped to bite sized chunks); roast is any food stuck over fire; cured goods (cheese, butter, smoked meat) are culturally present, but made only when settled for longer stays.
> 
> Their beasts of labor – roho /ʁøχō/ – are a puzzle, bearing similar genetic robustness. They're a mix of alpaca, reindeer, yak, and whatever else happens along. Their dairy products are high-calorie and voluminous, wool greatly prized even beyond the Orc clans, meat rich and flavorful (between goat and pig), bones and hides provide unique properties for tools and weapons/armor, and they are capable of great speed and effort in both transportation and battle. True omnivores.
> 
> Often accompanied by a smaller clan or two of Dovahn Bears. Dovahni are barely sophant (WIS), but enough to work with others. Reclusive beyond a simple alliance with their Orc clan, sticking to their own clans and living very simply, sapient (INT) enough to work with simple tools and weapons/armor the Orcs give them. Rarely, one will join the world at large as a barbarian and/or a ranger.
> 
> 4 Like Bullywugs, with differences. Tribes tame mud weasels and cat-weasels for the hunt, and their druid-shamans have been known to make unreliable allies of moat monsters. Those Marmots who live long enough suffer the congenital issue of sprouting fungal growths that eventually transform their bodies into mats and hummocks that the community feeds and in turn feeds upon.


	9. Coming in from the cold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **N.B.:** This chapter's footnote section is crammed, so I lack sufficient characters to even link back out to the main text, much less space for anchors in from the text, so you'll have to scroll back and forth or wait 'til you get to the bottom. Sorry about that! 😔
> 
> For the accompanying playlist / soundtrack, please see:  
>  ▐► <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdQ9vN7FdPYG6DgnCJHFlFe-u_MuZiew>
> 
> Foodies: yes, there are recipes available for a good number of the foods mentioned herein. You can find them in “Appendix F: Recipes” (and some few in the commentary / annotation) of the .pdf of “Seize the Deity” at  
>  ▐► <https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BG7P_sVezz8Dn5b8js_34yeAjSBhfN0v>
> 
> **UPDATE 13 Jun 2020:** restored a deleted scene as the opening of this chapter (occurring near the coast of Sarasaland, while en route from Tor Diablo to Hyrule City, a few weeks prior to the now-second scene), and an associated footnote.
> 
> ▼ Begin alpha ▼  
>  This chapter is unfinished as yet, and so there are portions that break the usual narrative flow, being outlined rather than fully fleshed out. Please forgive these, as I thought that it might be better to at least present them as-is than to make readers wait until I finally clean it up entirely.  
>  ▲ End alpha ▲
> 
> ▐► **For notes on how to change fonts and font colors and so forth, please see** [Fonts, and colors, and work skins, oh my!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28934610)
> 
>   
> 

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Return to Hyrule; fastest route is riding almost due south through Sarasaland to the Kremlantic, then ship to Hyrule.

Z: _Again – so soon?_ It's a little distracting, holding the reins with you poking my ass with that thing the whole way ye know...

P: It's not _my_ fault! <squirming> I didn't exactly have a lot of time **1** or a blueprint to work from when I modified things down there. Besides, your butt keeps rubbing up against it and it just sort of... responds on its own...

Z: Do we need to pull over and relieve your “tension” again? I mean, you're already wearing a new hole in my ass morning, noon, and night, anyway.

P: But then everybody would know what we were doing – and _why_ !

Z: Honey, Squishy-poos, believe me – _everybody_ knows. And if we don't, and we get to port and that _thing_ of yours stands to attention–

P: _Maybe we should pull over now!_

▲ End alpha ▲

=====

* * * * * * * * * *  
6562 – 03 – 15  
ALCON  
RE: IMPERIAL DEBRIEF  
RECOMMENDATIONS REQ'D  
/ / / / / / / / / /  
PEACH  
Why won't the Ōkami simply stop the problem? Well, not everything is as clear as it was, but I still remember some of it. It's like a prime directive: we don't interfere – just nudge things a little. To guide everything is to waste our time on lesser things, as well as to affect natural selection, and finally... well, call it a cold-truce. If we were to involve ourselves directly, then so too would The Others, and that would be unhealthy for a great many worlds.  
Besides, who'd want to rule over an ant farm anyway, especially with so much to see and experience in the worlds? It would be like an international super-power political conference concerning itself over which side of a tree a couple of dogs were marking.  
Power is always there. Life implies death. To live, everything now alive requires that everything else that isn't alive anymore have died for it to now live. Plants push one another out of the light. Everything eats everything else. Life is death. Death is the power and gift to live.

* * *

ZELDA  
So there we were the other night, Peach reading a book and I in a marathon on Scrynet, catching up on _Spell Trek: The Next Generation_ , when she turns to me an' says ' _Oh, honey, you're a Goddess!_ ' and plants this kiss on me – now I thought ' _Sweet! I'm gonna score!_ ' and dove straight into her tits, but no-o-o, she'd meant it. Well, here she is making appreciative noises an' all, but still she tells me that she'd meant it; like, _really-meant-it_ meant-it, as in literally a Goddess. Hylia, no less! Talk about a mood-killer. Aye – she'd just suddenly remembered that – what the _hell_ am I supposed to do with _that_ , I ask ye?!?

* * *

TAILS  
[Very serious look, like a four year old waiting to go to the zoo as promised, even in the thunderstorm.]  
Y'know, Zelda promised me tutors and as many books as I want. Can we do that soon, please? I have my preliminary lists all worked out already!

* * *

ZELDA  
D'ye _know_ what that _does_ t'yer _head_ , man? I'll tell ye what it does. It does ye right in! It explains some shit Nayru's pulled – and believe me, am I gonna give _her_ a piece of my mind the next chance I get! I mean, here I am wandering through nine kinds of Hell this whole time, for a _decade and a half_ , while they're up there, lounging around the Empyrean, scarfing down ambrosia and nectar and gettin' high on æther; whose brilliant idea was that, I wonder. I'm tempted to beat the shit out of the lot of them, I tell ye!  
Ach, for shit's sake, stop cowering man! Ye've done naught wrong and I can't cast thunderbolts! At least I don't _think_ so anyway... Hmm... I wonder if I can cast thunderbolts...

* * *

SONIC  
Fuckin' Puzzle Palace _putzes_ – and don't call me ' _sir_ '; I _work_ fer a livin'. Yer makin' me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. Ya got all the details, now either fuck off an' lemme see the others, or I tear this fuckin' place apart.  
[Face utterly calm and empty.]  
Then y'kingdom.  
Then yer empire.  
_Your_ choice, Secret Squirrel.  
Tick. Tock.

▼ Begin alpha ▼  
<staring dead at the alpha, alpha's cover blown. Breathing exercises trigger heightened senses and reflexes. Cold smile; reptilian stare. Sure some of them had it too, but they were housecats staring down a hungry hyaena, and they knew it. The others were officious and clueless; Sonic glanced across them and smirked, dismissing their existence (their presences literally becoming gray blurs in his visual field), returning his gaze to the “hidden” alpha – who might as well have been sitting in a spotlight. The alpha's foot shifted ever so slightly. Sonic's smile warmed.>  
▲ End alpha ▲

Not so hard, eh?

* * *

TAILS  
Is that _really_ your _real_ hair, mister?

* * *

ZELDA  
So. I'm _an_ incarnation of a goddess. Great. When I die, then what? She sucks me back up and I wake up as her, an' this whole life was _just a dream..._?

* * *

RURU  
Why won't anyone ask me any more questions? I have had one interview only so far. The Ruru has _many_ more important informations for you!

* * *

ZELDA  
Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

* * *

TAILS  
We've been talking for a while now. Could I have some milk and cookies?  


▼ Begin alpha ▼  
<quiet guy in back sends flunky for whole plate and quart>  
▲ End alpha ▲

* * *

ICK BEN NIEMAND, primary investigating agent  
_They're stonewalling._

* * *

PEACH  
O.K., boys. We've talked a lot, and I've answered a lot of questions, so why don't you play nice and bring me to Zelda, O.K.? Trust me, it's a much better idea than your alternative.

* * *

TAILS  
And a foot long hot roast beef hero, with brown turkey-gravy? And heavy on the button mushrooms!  


▼ Begin alpha ▼  
<same quiet guy flicks head at flunky again>  
▲ End alpha ▲

And lots of salt and pepper.  


▼ Begin alpha ▼  
<I'll bring cellars, a tureen, the works; flunky hastens out>  
▲ End alpha ▲

* * *

ZELDA  
Maybe they have groups for this, yeah? You walk in, say your name, tell them who you are, they say ' _Hi, Zelda_ ,' and you go on to explain ' _I've been a mortal for thirty years..._ '

* * *

DANTE RANDAL, PhD, MD, LPC, LCSW  
A _Goddess_? I _wasn't trained_ for _this_!!!

* * *

ZELDA  
Man, that feels so good to get off of my chest! Can we schedule another appointment for next week?  
Or maybe tomorrow? Is your schedule open tomorrow?  
Oh, wait – even better: how about both?  


▼ Begin alpha ▼  
<shrink gulps, glances wide eyed around room, smiles wanly, “ _I'm afraid that it is now, Prin – Emp – Your Grace..._ ”>  
▲ End alpha ▲

* * *

DANTE RANDAL, PhD, MD, LPC, LCSW  
_Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit._

* * *

TAILS  
She also said that I could have a research team and a fully equipped facility. I mean, like, for _everything_. And tenure with no oversight!

* * *

ZELDA  
I mean, I get the past lives, yeah, but – oh, ye didn't know – look, it's just a whole different level, right?

* * *

DANTE RANDAL, PhD, MD, LPC, LCSW  
I'm _not_ even supposed to _be here_ today!

* * *

// LAST ITEM //  
END OF TRANSCRIPT  
PLEASE ADVISE SOONEST  
V/R  
// SIGNED //  
ICK BEN NIEMAND  
* * * * * * * * * *

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Zelda's combat challenge, try not to hurt or kill anyone too much (facetious retort, nose tweak).

Grand Capital Hotel, Crown Suite. The scent of books fills the air. Peach plays video games in sweat pants or t-shirt (rarely both – by this point, she's grown thoroughly used to being in various states of undress around the others again), though often just her flannel shirt from Freeport that smells of Zelda. Zelda enjoys watching her enjoy herself, but usually doesn't join, since they each get a bit intense, leading to a vicious cycle. P's handle is “ _DethTüng_ ,” her avatar a penguin with a tuba and an olive loaf (both the handle and the avatar were Sonic's suggestions, along with a tag-line about porcupines and raisins); she occasionally screams “ _Alliance scum!_ ”

At end of third day's combat, Peach has surprise for Zelda: sings “I can't help falling in love with you”, her piping voice clear and strong, carrying well through the amphitheater's ranks and hallways.  
INSERT INTERLUDE: "Deathclaw: the tale of Mister Fluffykins" sidequel link

Zelda's edicts (re.: abolition of Asimovian laws in Golems, zoos' conversion to open sanctuaries [tour at own peril], etc.).

Imperial university theory-and-tech. tenure-and-student exchange incentive program (P's idea and pet-project) brings science to magic, magic to psionics, etc. (golem-bots being just one example of recent snowballing trend, though they have a predilection for the animistically psychedelic effects **2** brought about by sniffing different teas, and a fascination with body modifications – often catering to bizarre tastes in entertainment and fetishes; though the hypothetical work on Asimovian Laws and variants continues, her Imperial Edict bans non-voluntary placement of such into the mind of a sentient or pre-sentient thaumatronic matrix).

Z puts P & T as a team in charge of encyc tech; T knows hi tech, P knows light world's social integration of current tech levels – T's thinking uncomfortably of the most rapid deployment and absorption of spoon-fed upgrades probably being through warcraft and sex, and possibly cats, already working on networking scrynet and intervision in his head. S makes side-comment about having their very own _Science Ninja Team_.

Civic outreach program to Freeport with food, shelter, school

Sonic's accolade as _Sir Sonic, Grand Count of Monte Mortis and surrounds, Lord of the Realm **3** [sings to himself “ _If I only had the nerve_ ”], he asks if she's sure he ain't the count o' Monte Cristo instead and tells her that he'll get-her-fuckin'-back-fer-this, she asks if he plans to short-sheet her bed, he replies “I might, rabbit, I might, and maybe I'll just write a book about alla this an' expose yer secrets like a tabloid...”; the Fridays are named Countesses thereof (they are specifically Grand Countesses themselves, but any descendants would bear only Count/Countess as a hereditary attached title); proclamation of Daisy as Prime Minister and Ambassador Plenipotentiary; proclamation of Royal Princess Kitana as Imperial Duchess of the Outer Marches, with Novaya Edenia directly in fiefdom to Hyrule; Imperial Warrant of Appointment is issued to _Valjean's_._

__

House Otelier of Duhan was restored to their chair at the Imperial Council. House Koopa was demoted to a minor House and in thrall to House Kong; House Kong's part in the affair is left unmentioned, though it's granted a full pardon in camber.

 __

__

While Sonic isn't officially in charge of Imperial Security, it was at his later behest that those with red or gold shirts were redesigned to blue themes.

 __

__

Her edicts/etc. all bore one striking form: they were worded first in her own words – “My _exact faecking_ words,” as she'd put it (which happened to have been in the midst of her first one, and hence was included word for word) – and only then followed by official language meant to translate it for all. Should any confusion arise, the first set was to be held as the standard.

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▲ End alpha ▲

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__

Upon the various pronouncements and official duties having been dispensed with, Peach's parents swanned forth from the courtiers, smiling and waving to every camera as they did. Their clothing was magnificent, colors adorning every square inch with eye-catching patterns of every sort, the play of color and materials mesmerizing one and all, their manner as regal as any yet born. Before they had reached ten paces from the thrones, Zelda arrested their progress with a cold stare. Peach tensed, stiffening visibly even to those not nearby.

__

“ _Kneel_.”

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The word echoed across the court, clear to all, her voice still and level.

__

“ _You_ shall not dare approach My wife, your Queen, in so familiar a manner,” she declared with a voice cold and harsh as Peach had never before heard it. While not a hiss, her utterance carried the quality of one to the point that she strained to hear what was said right next to her.

__

“Cuckoos have more parenting skill and instinct. Do you know Her favorite color? What She sings when She's lonely? Do these things even mean anything to you? Stand lucky that I spare you your craven lives.

__

“You would do well to choose your next actions most wisely. You may remain for the dinner and leave once you're sufficiently well fed. You shall not return lest We see fit to have you summoned. You are unfit to rule, continuing to do so only by the grace of your Queen's mercy; I would not be so kind.

__

“Look into My eyes and see the truth of it,” she continued, her face still as a statue, colder than marble, her eyes as empty as glass, “You see _it_. Know you that I _see_ you, and know _what_ you are. Monsters are real, they just never _look_ monstrous. Your words charm and manners beguile. See you any compassion within My gaze? Or even so much as loathing?

__

“Now leave Us, and remove therewith whatever gifts art thine.”

__

Throughout, she'd been utterly relaxed, showing no emotion whatsoever. Cold. Empty. Reptilian.

__

__

Zelda stood and turned to the gathered audience and cameras, clearing her throat. Peach stood quiet and still next to her, the very picture of regality.

__

All fell silent.

__

She gave both those gathered before her and all of the press a sweeping stare, then leaned in, her countenance that of a mother bear. A very perturbed mother bear woken a month early. The microphone cannons picked up even her breathing, to be simulcast live around the world on scrynet and intervision.

__

“Peach is not just My wife and queen, but your co-primarch. Fuck with Her, or anyone else in My family,” she paused to take in the rest of the party, including the Fridays in this, as well as Daisy and Kitana, “and I _will_ kill you – be you tinker, tailor, soldier... or spy. A move against one is a move against us all.”

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_

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Formal dinner. Selection of crudités, then hors d'oeuvres beginning with white wine-marinated tofu saté with coconut flakes and ginger-peanut sauce, followed by maple sesame cauliflower and wontons; the curried crab vol-au-vent went particularly well. Sonic had had a hand in all of this, and it showed through the rest of the evening, notably when unveiling the blueberry-hazelnut croque-en-bouche overflowing with Chantilly cream and a dark chocolate ganache. Gazing at the structure, the guests' responses confirmed his hunches; the smile that plastered his face wasn't a broad one of ego, but a calm one of satisfaction at having created something worthy of their praise and pleasure.

=====

P: I have a tutor now. Two of them, actually.

Z: That's a good start, but Tails'll need a lot more than just two.

P doesn't say anything, just looks at feet.

Z: What?

P: Apparently what you said had some impact – even Daisy's never been that direct with them. Daddy said that _no daughter of his was going to go off half-cocked_ , so he sent his master spy to train me. Then my _uncle_ wasn't about to be outdone, so _he_ sent _his_ master spy to train me. And now they're holed up in the study – the one adjoining the main library – working out a syllabus and a rubric. This means that I'll probably be a first level spy in about a month.

Z: <cracked her knuckles> Does Sonic know of this yet?

P shook her head.

Z: We'd best find him then, before he finds them, and they find out the hard way.

INSERT INTERLUDES: "Alexander's horned cabinet" [ORCEA] sidequel link, then "10 Sock hop (Zelda x Peach" sidequel link and "28 Nightmare at 20,000 RPM (Zelda x Peach)" sidequel link.

▲ End alpha ▲

_

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**_One year later._ **

__

Warbotdorf had a nagging feeling of imminent death – _or is that recent death – from a fire-belching capital “D” while having searched for an amulet? A fading memory, as if of a dream, of having run into corpses identical to himself, though with various differences in their equipment._

__

Shaking his head to clear it, he looked around.

__

At first, he suffered the impression of standing at the end of a road, almost as if there were another image hiding behind what was in plain sight – _well, certainly there was a forest around him at any rate_. Instead of a road though, he stood next to a small closed mailbox in an open field west of a white house with a rubber mat lying by its boarded front door. There was a brass lamp here, and a sign leaning against a pile of pebbles and small stones. To the west, as well as to both the north and south of the house, narrow paths wound through the trees. He could hear a gurgling stream to the south.

__

Taking inventory, he found that he carried only a pouch containing a yellow towel, a single silver zorkmid coin, and a punched admission ticket.

__

  
**Ticket number 1729** **  
Seat 25F  
Acme Building Auditorium**  
  


__

_What a dull number, and this ticket doesn't make much sense. It's all so hazy._

__

Putting it out of his mind, he opened the mailbox.

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=====

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_

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Wedding. Huge public event this time.

▲ End alpha ▲

_

__

Sonic wandered into Zelda's dressing room as she was making the final adjustments to her outfit.

__

He stopped and stared.

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“Dress blues... _and full battle rattle_ ,” he smirked, “ _Seriously?_ P's idea ta dress ya like that, huh.”

__

He sniffed the air. “She even gotcha ta take a bath – wit' _soap_ – an' put on that spiced cologne she got'chu fer Nayrufest, huh? Damn!”

__

“I swear – if you laugh I will wring your scrawny neck where ye stand.”

__

She grimaced at the thought of being seen like this, and he grimaced in sympathy.

__

“Don't even think o' takin' a hike. Fer one, yer a'ready hitched; fer two, I'd have ta kill ya then. An' then P'd kill me, no question there. An' then with all the blood 'n' the screamin'... just not pretty, huh?”

__

She was uncomfortable. Moreover, it was embarrassing. The armor was _clean_. Neither dents nor rents, not a single blemish. Polished to a mirror surface. There wasn't a hint of sweat about it, not a speck of blood to be seen. It was chased with four different kinds of _gold_ , for Nayru's sake.

__

Sonic proffered a flask, which she snatched gratefully.

__

“Not enough ta get'cha wasted, but I smuggled it in figurin' ya'd prob'ly need some'n fer yer nerves – an' hey, lemme get some too, when yer done. Between the two of us, if this goes off without a hitch or a few bodies, it'll be a miracle.”

__

“Cheers – what's in it?” she asked, as she unscrewed the cap.

__

“Eh, my own concoction. 'bout four parts Bailey's, two or three cherry Heering – 'cause ya like that shit in particular – a part or two o' Kahlúa, an' a couple o' dashes o' Malibu. Then I tossed in some two hunnert proof, just ta be sure.”

__

“Heady shit,” she replied.

__

“L'chaim!” he nodded.

__

She looked at him imploringly.

__

“What if she says no, man?”

__

“Dude, that ain't gonna happen,” he reassured her.

__

“Aye, but _what if_? I mean, she's had a year off of the road. She could've seen enough and come tae her senses!”

__

“Z, if that was gonna happen, she'd'a left yer sorry ass way the fuck back. 's O.K.; chill.”

__

“And if any speak out against this?”

__

“Simple. We kill 'em 'til they're deadski,” he paused and cocked his eyebrow, studying her, “am I gettin' through fi' by five here, man?”

__

Zelda found herself in the horns of a dilemma, and turned away for a moment to compose herself.

__

“Z, 'sup? Y'a'ight?”

__

Her head bobbed, but that was the entirety of her response.

__

Sonic smiled and nodded, “P's civilized ya, huh. 'scool. We can just mangle 'em, or even keep it to excruciatin' pain, man.”

__

She laughed a little at this.

__

“Ja, that might be for the best, since I might find myself on the couch for the entire honeymoon, otherwise.”

__

“An' stop scratchin' y'self like that, man. P'll ripya a new one, she catches you pullin' that shit at the altar,” he said, glancing at his wrist as if to check a watch, “You could try throwin' on some underwear, maybe – 'swhat they make 'em for, y'know. G'head, ya got time, 'long as the Gnomes ain't stolen 'em.”

__

__

Carnations and mums by the thousands adorned the walls and pillars, with cascades of baby's breath, a profusion of lilacs and calla lilies, and small accents of so many other flowers offsetting them in carefully positioned areas. Zelda had seen to it that the lilacs and lilies were particularly prominent, recalling Peach's love of them that day in Freeport.

__

Peach's dress was simple but beautiful, framing and highlighting her, a bouquet of pygmy piranha plants **4** nipping at one another. The veil hanging from her tiara stood out as a declaration to all.

__

Zelda wore a more formal version of her ranger outfit, with minor pieces of decorative armor to provide accent. Her heart already pounding, it skipped a beat when Peach hove into view, the world dimming around her as Zelda's focus narrowed to only Peach.

__

When Peach reached the altar, she leaned over to Zelda and whispered “You look too serious, as if you were ready to kill someone.”

__

Zelda gave her a quick peck, reaching to embrace her, but Peach rebuffed her gently, “Taffeta, darling, taffeta!”

__

“I shall _indeed_ wreak grievous bodily harm to any who threaten this moment. Also, you sound like Sonic.”

__

“Oh, you're so sweet! Bloodthirsty, but sweet. Honey, we're already married. There's nothing to fear.”

__

“Mine!” Zelda smiled, “But this day is yours, and I'll see no one ruin it for you – is that Paloma? Or Obsession?”

__

Peach knew what that meant, and smiled warmly, looking forward to the evening.

__

“Obsession,” she replied innocently, “why?”

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Zelda's only response a was a deep, frustrated growl from the back of her throat.

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Reception held at The Abundant Crop of Hostesses.

__

Peach discovered very quickly just what made this Zelda's favorite tavern. There were quite a few Usamimi and several species of Nekomusume. There were also Nýmphē (notably Thrakṍn Dryades and Naiádes **5** ) – not to mention moe Lamiai, haughty Mycenæan Hărpia **6** , Kéntauroi **7** , Mermaids **8** , Faunæ **9** , Drider-like Arachnoi dominae (at least a couple of whom were six sheets to the wind on cappuccino), Fairies, sylphic loli Doppels and Slimes (none of either seeming to have any interest whatsoever in clothing), and several extremely overly-friendly Dragons in humanoid form, among others; there were even a few Kyklōpes, a couple of Dark Clowns **10** , and a two-headed Ogress. Then there were those who seemed to be fungal, or mineral-based, or Golem-bot, or... the selection was as dizzying as it was astounding.

__

Peach finally discovered that the horned girl in Freeport had been a Succubus **11** , since there were several present. She'd had no idea that there were so many species represented in the capital, though she supposed that it stood to reason. Some of the hostesses served drinks and canapés, and some engaged in conversation and dance with the guests, while others... others seemed to be serving themselves up. She wasn't entirely certain as to whether the place were a huge tavern or a high-end brothel, or possibly an ongoing piece of performance art; in the end, she suspected that it was a little of each. She brought her thoughts up short when they turned to the question of the Ogress.

__

Daisy had an absolute ball exchanging a host of scry resonances and cell numbers with every species that she could find, disappearing several times to powder their noses together.

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_

▼ Begin alpha ▼

Zelda sings “ _Nobody does it better_ ”; Peach completely breaks down at this, bawling her eyes out. Even Sonic finds that there's something in his eyes.

When Peach then sang “ _True colors_ ,” Zelda barely managed to stay put and hold it together. Sonic leaned in to her afterward to whisper “Be most excellent to each other, and party on dude.”

▲ End alpha ▲

_

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=====

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Zelda stood before Peach in the imperial apartment. Whatever news Peach had, Zelda was eaten up with angst. Peach hadn't been intentionally mysterious, but hadn't said a word as they'd closeted themselves away.

__

Peach looked into Zelda's eyes with a powerful mixture of emotions, and said simply “I'm pregnant!”

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The world telescoped for Zelda, lurching three feet to the left even as she found herself a speck of dust ground between the fingertips of a Titan.

__

Gray, cold, silent.

__

Time spun in place.

__

_Hamster wheel noises._

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_Floating peacefully. Tranquility._

__

_Cold nose. Why is my nose cold? Feels... mentholated._

__

_Can't think..._

__

_Something. Someone._

__

_Words?_

__

_...words..._

__

_Faeck. It happened again. Walk away. Don't talk, don't ask, don't listen. Run!_

__

Time ratcheted forward.

__

Zelda paused, gathering herself.

__

“Who's the father?” she asked quietly, her voice tight, barely more than a whisper.

__

_What the faeck are you doing? Why are you still standing here, you idiot? You know what's coming. Lies. Lies and more damned lies, and insanity and bullshit._

__

“You are...?” Peach said, confused concern evident in the tremulous note of her voice.

__

_I told you so. Now move. Get the faeck out of here. It matters not if she's pregnant, or has cause to think so, or is just faecking lying to faeck wi' your head. Leave. NOW._

__

Zelda pinched the bridge of her nose in a long-suffering look.

__

“Peach, I don't know how to tell you this, but it doesn't work that way.”

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_

▼ Begin alpha ▼

P: explained that there hadn't been anyone else. She thought that her wishful thoughts to bear Zelda children were answered. This had been a few weeks earlier.

_Wishful thinking she says. Oh aye, uh-huh. Dude, seriously, you're a faecking idiot, now let's go! Door. That way. Move._

Z: asked for detail – precisely when, where, how, and so forth.

_Really? You're gonna do this? You're really gonna fucking stand here and swallow whatever shite she fucking feeds you, huh? Really?!? Fine: fuck me._

P: the intermission of the three day festival.

Z: “Intermission. Do you mean the second day – the _fertility_ day – of the three holy days of Nayru?”

P: Thought for a moment and nodded, and explained that she'd been in their chapel...

Z: exits their room with Peach in hand, leaping around and screaming “ _I'm gone be a faether_ – or… something!” a huge grin beaming from her face as she started tossing fistfuls of her cigars at everyone.

“ _Yokatta!_ ” Ruru squealed in excitement, and burst into animated chatter with the Fridays.

Tails: “A Grumpy Crypt Kitteh, huh? Well, Mordenkainen's Adorable Binky won't cut it then – and my Wand of Magic Red Dots needs to be recharged... I'm going to use my plus-three Frank's Crufty Cheeseburger, blessed by Ceiling Cat!”

Sonic looked up from their game of _7r0115 and Flame-Warz_ , books and papers and polyhedral dice strewn about, liberally interspersed with a variety of snacks and drinks – and one of the cats, a huge Siberian-striped Savannah Coon named Mister Fluffykins, asleep on the corner – and pinched the bridge of his nose in a long-suffering look.

“Yeah. Z? I dunno how ta tell ya this, but...”

=====

P conversation with chambermaid.

Maid: I'm sorry your Imperial Majesty, but there is no one in the entire palace who doesn't know when you're... _having intimate relations_.

Peach sought out Zelda for the royal renovator and remodeling architect (and more tapestries, in the meantime) – and this after all of the remodeling had finally been completed to install electricity, scrynet-friendly intervision, and indoor plumbing.

Z Ach, lass, yer a hot mess, aren't ye?

P smiles winsomely: have I ever told you how much I love your reacquired accent, now that you've been home awhile?

▲ End alpha ▲

_

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=====

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**_One month later. **12** _**

_****___

“Peach, Squishy-poos, did you get the picture I just sent you?” Zelda called from the next room, wearing a wicked grin, a sheer negligee, and what amounted to a few pieces of string.

____

Peach stared at her pad, tilting her head sideways to get a better view of what was displayed on the screen – a look of mixed lechery and aghast cringing shock, as the realization came to her.

____

“Yes! Me and every single one of your contacts!”

____

“What?! Damn technology – smartphones my ass!”

____

“...and what an ass, indeed...” Peach replied, getting up from the desk and wandering into the other room with lust in her eye.

____

_It's good to be the queen..._

____

____

=====

____

____

**_One week later._ **

____

“What–?” Sonic began, but Zelda was already listening to something else. Feeling something else. A presence – a very powerful presence.

____

When she looked to him, a silent conversation flashed between them. Eyes narrowed, he jerked his chin to Tails, the pair bracing Peach as Zelda left the room, stalking the something.

____

She found that something in the next room. An ancient wombat wearing a simple cotton yùyī and bamboo dǒulì, and clutching a wood staff – a shakujō – covered in runes, several sūtras dangling freely from the rings of its pinial. Gold and silver on indigo silk, or artistic ink on bone white paper, they caught the eye without being jarring. Aside from being clothed, he looked fairly normal, albeit somewhat tall for a wombat, but somehow he just _seemed_ to have wrinkles and a long wispy beard, just as he _seemed_ to be blind, though he clearly wasn't. Everything about him presented as if he were about to fall asleep, but he was clearly the presence that they had sensed. She ran through multiple simulations instantly with no success; while neither of them had made more than a few subconscious microscopic twitches, she could sense that she had no chance whatsoever of defeating him in combat. Each of his motions was slow and deliberate, yet utterly fluid and absolutely perfect in economy and utility. He blinked slowly and bowed a fraction of an inch in acknowledgment.

____

His every movement was so slow as to be glacial. _Is he a Sloth in Wombat's clothing?_

____

She couldn't be sure, but she'd swear that his eyes twinkled just then.

____

Peach burst in, and Zelda interposed herself immediately.

____

“Shīfù Lǎorén! Nín hǎo ma!? Zuìjìn zěnme yàng, yéye?” Peach cried out, bouncing with excitement.

____

“Pīchi-sama, dai-ichi ōjo no Ōkami – magomusume-tan,” the corners of his eyes crinkling as he replied calmly, “Hai, domo. Watashi wa genki desu. Ogenki desu ka?” his tone expressing clear familiarity and warmth as he blinked very slowly and inclined his head toward her. Zelda imagined that had he written it out, it would have been in a beautifully curled hiragana, thick and thin strokes flowing and merging – she could almost hear it, aside from a tinge of katakana to Peach's name.

____

“Princess?” Zelda inquired, glancing backward with a raised eyebrow, her tone implying that she was wondering just when Peach had intended to mention these language skills and precisely how she knew this intruder.

____

“Ohh! Kare wa totemo kawaii desu!” Ruru exclaimed, hovering around him in circles. He smiled at this.

____

Zelda could see how Peach would be drawn to him. He was cute and fuzzy – hell, he looked like a giant Teddy bear in a bathrobe.

____

“I... don't...” Peach broke off for lack of words.

____

“Did, didn't, do again,” the Wombat supplied for her, his eyes on Peach, then returning to Zelda, “Only a rare love indeed acts in so foolhardy a manner. This is good.”

____

“Zelda, everybody, please let me introduce to you Shīfù Lǎorén, an immortal and my oldest friend,” Peach began, “Jiā yéye, permit me to introduce to you Empress Zelda, my wife, Ruru, on your shoulder playing with your ear, and Sonic and Tails, my family – and our daughter, soon,” Peach said, laying her hand gently across her belly with a smile. At just over eight weeks pregnant, it was a bit too early yet for her baby bump to show much, but she was still thrilled and fiercely proud.

____

Shīfù Lǎorén tilted his head slightly to each in turn, resting slightly longer and more paternally when his gaze came to Peach's pregnant belly.

____

Sonic glanced at Tails, “An Immortal Wombat, huh? Wait'l Kitana gets a load o' this one.”

____

“Pīchi-sama, your chi has grown. This is also good. Now, cast yourself outward,” he said without further preamble, bobbing his head vaguely upward.

____

“I can't,” she replied, “not anymore, I mean. Not now, not like this.”

____

“Look through me,” he instructed.

____

_Legions dying, fire and destruction, a sweeping darkness swallowing the lands, insane perversions of mechanism and nature, myriad possibilities leading to the same conclusion, an octahedral tower of silver and obsidian and a shining brass cube at the center of it all. Behind it marched a beautiful woman, a terrible woman, a halo of spikes surrounding her head, magenta-lavender skin clashing painfully with turquoise hair._

____

Peach's face became ashen.

____

“The box is here?” she asked, already knowing the truth of it.

____

Again, Shīfù Lǎorén tilted his head slightly.

____

Sonic took this as a cue. “So, this box. Maybe not such a good thing, huh?”

____

Peach could only stare in horror. “A Cenobite plague. Cenobites are... demonic things. Neither good nor evil, they serve only the box. Daemon hunts those who seek the box. The Lament Configuration. It's a three dimensional sliding puzzle box, the worst of many; one configuration brings eternal paradise, all others...” she shook her head.

____

“Daemon is... She's a fanatic,” Peach continued, picking her words as if she were walking through a minefield, “Like Shīfù Lǎorén and me, or Zelda, she's a Power. Where we seek not to interfere, she uses all within her grasp to purge the worlds of certain artifacts. The Lament Configuration is one of those artifacts.”

____

____

  
**/// ~~~ ///**

____

____

  
**~ Fin, et exeunt omnes ~**

____

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Ōkami time: Peach had time enough to recreate her entire body from non-existence, not even putting back together her atoms torn asunder (nor the dissipated energy that once was glued together to form quarks and gluons and binding energy), and to modify her anatomy on-the-fly and have it come out functional (without prior knowledge beyond whatever godlike information Ōkami naturally have at their disposal).  
> Several phenomena must be accounted for. At a minimum: time contraction (permitting this to take place far more rapidly from an outside perspective than one would expect) along at least one orthogonal time axis (just trust me: it's an Ōkami thing here [call them “tau” and “teh”, IAW Heinlein]) that's been pinched along regular time and stretched sideways (almost certainly fanned out like a ginkgo leaf in order to permit multiple iterations simultaneously), the power to throw together a living body with which to reincarnate, and a clue as to how to go about achieving this body-mod (think ~K 3-4 Encyclopædia Psionica [not K 5 Akashica]).  
> I'd guess an extension of multitasking too: thinking in multiple modes simultaneously, pursue each on different paths simultaneously; the mental equivalent of K 2.  
> One might argue that the Ōkami have an advantage over Tolkien's Maiar.  
> To be clear: she's still cisfemale, she simply modified her clitoris to incorporate vesicle engorgement (not a penis).
> 
> 2 Tea-sniffing: Penguins in ice caves, sexy anthropomorphic unicorns, talking sponges, etc.. Bread (especially if fresh) also has some odd effects on some of them; soda bread holds an uncanny allure for some. See Jeff Jacques's "Questionable content".
> 
> 3 Sir: Yes, Sonic is both a knight and a peer.  
> Whereas knighthood is conferred on commoners in the real world, it's not an elevation of status within the Hyrule Empire. Some social status obtains, to be sure, but primarily in esteem due to what said knighthood implies. It stems from martial services rendered in extremis, by one not of the Hyrule armies, and is rarely extended to any who are not Hyrule subjects.  
> His peerdom is strictly secondary to this, though holding greater general social weight in legitimizing his clear citizenship. The fact that she chose to make him Grand Count, rather than Duke or Grand Duke, indicates his place in her heart and that he holds her ear.  
> The simultaneity of the titles indicates that they are separate and equal in the empress's eyes, further underscoring the formidable nature of the recipient.
> 
> 4 Piranha plants: often regarded as dangerous pests, they can be intensely loyal and quite loving when treated well, especially when raised domestically as part of the family. Their heads being covered in a wide variety of eyes and their root systems granting them 30' Tremorsense also makes them excellent guards.
> 
> 5 Thrakṍn Dryades: Generally members of the Cult of Caïssa (a Dryad herself, though with a significant following of Naiádes and some Nereids, she has a dual aspect as Şah Scacchis), adept in all families of chess variants (to include such outliers as chess-boxing and RPG-chess) and related matters, thus making for intellectually stimulating conversation with the guests – not to mention brilliant tacticians, strategists, and game theoreticians whom you just can't determine to be animal, plant, both, or something else entirely; here, they're also nude, though Peach really couldn't tell through their strategically placed foliage. They are also adept with the theremin and armonica, following Caïssa's lead.
> 
> 6 Mycenæan Hărpia: Their plumage would shame most tropical birds, hence their hauteur.
> 
> 7 Kéntauroi: Gorgeous manes and an embarrassing and anatomically surprising abundance of both breasts and (inexplicably to Peach) udders.
> 
> 8 Mermaids: Tragedy addicts whose clothing constantly slips out of place due to their mucal coating.
> 
> 9 Faunæ: Even more frolicsome than their reputations would have them.
> 
> 10 Dark Clowns: Basically normal-looking clowns, just gray-scaled. Strange powers and humor, and some pretty head-scratching kinks (not actually disgusting to anyone, so much as puzzling to almost everyone else); pray that they haven't mastered the deadly art of Jazz Hands.
> 
> 11 Succubi: Succubi possess loreal pits – infrared-sensing fossa common to pit vipers; those near their nostrils are W-shaped, offering polarization differentiation and bidirectionality, whereas those toward the temples focus on parallax, contrast, and motion. Their eyes are similarly unusual, in that their internal structure is that of the mantis shrimp's (16 different [color] cone-cell types, full polarization). Furthermore, they possess sonar, and electroreceptive (active and passive) and magnetoceptive organs.
> 
> 12 Smartphone: this dialogue from SandraLVV's Korrasami-Week-Day-2-Modern-Day-SLVV Korrasami fanart on DeviantArt.


End file.
